Fight or Flight
by Hannah554
Summary: The students return to Pegasus Magic School but their second year brings problems of it's own, both magical and personal. Third installment of the Magical Lantis Series. John/Elizabeth, Ronon/Teyla, Jack/Sam.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note: So here it is, at long last, the third instalment of Magical Lantis. I know it took me forever to get this done but better late than never right? Sorry to everyone who was waiting for it and thanks for sticking with me, I hope it was worth the wait. Special thanks to Steph7085 for coming up with the title. **

**Fight or Flight**

Chapter 1

The summer had seemed to last forever and she was more than glad that it was over. Elizabeth stepped down from the carriage which had been forced to stop a little way from the front gates due to all the other busses and coaches that were currently unloading students. She could pick out the first years easily; they were the bewildered, lost looking ones. She accepted her suitcase and duffel bag from the coachman, thanking him and stepping back.

"Can't we get any closer?" a voice said and Elizabeth turned to look at her sister who was just getting off the carriage.

"There are a lot of students arriving at the same time Carlie, this is as close as we're going to get," Elizabeth told the blonde who looked incredibly put out at the one minute walk she would have to make to the front gate. The coachman took two suit cases out of the carriage and put them beside her sister. Carlie looked at the man as though he'd grown another head and then turned back to Elizabeth.

"How am I supposed to get both of those and my bags to my room by myself?" Carlie asked her.

"I did tell you not to pack too much," Elizabeth replied. This was the only part of returning to Pegasus she hadn't been looking forward, last year this place had been an escape from her family, this year Carlie would be here too. "There are people that can help you."

"Oh good," Carlie said and took one of the bags, putting it over her shoulder and then wheeling one of the suitcases toward the gate.

"I suppose I'll get these for you," Elizabeth said to the air and then smiled at the coachman, thanking him again before following after her sister. It was a lot more difficult than she would have guessed; wheeling two suitcases and carrying two duffel bags at the same time and she could only imagine what she looked like. She left Carlie with her things near to the gate and went to get her arrival file for her. It didn't take long, having done this for herself last year she at least knew what she was doing. "Here we are," she said as she returned to her sister's side. "This says you're in Entrix Towers."

"Which we already knew," Carlie replied both impatiently and smugly.

"Room 56," Elizabeth continued and then handed her the file. "If I remember correctly there'll be a map of the school in the file so you shouldn't have a problem finding your way around."

"Wait a minute, aren't you coming with me?" Carlie asked. "Father said you have to help me."

"I have helped you, you have your file, everything you need to know is in there and those guys over there are student volunteers, if you ask one of them they'll help you take your things to your room," Elizabeth explained. "I have to get my own stuff sorted out too Carlie, I'll come and check on you later."

She could tell her sister had further protests but Elizabeth promised her she'd be fine and grabbed her suit case. She headed straight to Raildon Halls, she would be in the same room she'd been in last year, the school didn't like to uproot students by changing their dorms every year, there was no point. She would only change dorms when she moved into the girls senior dorms in her fourth year. There were already a lot of students around, most of them she could tell were not first years because they all seemed to know where they were going.

She dragged her suitcase up the stairs of her dorm building to the third floor and made her way to room 327. It felt strange to be back here but it also felt more like coming home than it had when she'd returned to Tralos. She opened the door and dragged her things into the room.

"Elizabeth," a familiar voice exclaimed excitedly as she walked in and dropped her stuff near to her bed. She'd barely let go of when she was grabbed from the side in a very enthusiastic hug.

"Hello Teyla," Elizabeth shifted slightly to hug her roommate back. Teyla finally let go and stepped back, a huge grin on her face.

"I've really missed you over the summer, seven weeks was way too long," Teyla told her and then went back to unpacking her things.

"I missed you too," Elizabeth replied as she picked up her suit case and put it on her bed, opening it up and beginning to unpack her clothes. She noticed Teyla was stood eyeing her warily, a judging look on her face.

"You haven't reverted back to the old, quiet, withdrawn Elizabeth over the summer have you?" she asked, "I swear if I have to start all over again with you I might lose it."

"Pretty sure I haven't," Elizabeth replied with a smile. "Although I'll admit it's been a difficult summer."

Teyla didn't look like she was entirely convinced yet. "Okay."

"Have you seen any of the others yet?" Elizabeth asked her.

"No, I only got back twenty minutes ago, I figure once people are here and they get unpacked they'll head to the cafeteria to find everyone else," Teyla told her and Elizabeth nodded her head, it was logical, the cafeteria had always been their meeting place. "I can't believe we're in our second year, it doesn't seem like that long since I came in here for the first time and introduced myself to you, and in another way it feels like it's been forever."

"I know what you mean," Elizabeth said as she continued to unpack her things. Once she was finished with her own unpacking she helped Teyla with the last of hers before the two of them went to the cafeteria to see if anyone else had arrived yet. There were a lot more first years wondering around now and they were stopped twice by people asking for directions.

"Teyla, Elizabeth," they heard an excited shout when they walked into the cafeteria. Vala was waving to them from the table they had always preferred, Sam and Daniel sitting with her.

"Hey guys," Teyla greeted as she sat down next to Vala, the two women hugging excitedly and from the direction their conversation was heading in Elizabeth got the feeling there was going to be a shopping trip in her near future.

"How was your summer?" Sam asked them.

"It was okay," Elizabeth replied and Sam gave her an understanding look. "How about yours?"

"It was good, dad was pretty busy with council stuff and Mark was mostly absent but it was nice to have the break from school stuff and be at home, I hung out with Daniel most of the time," Sam told her and Daniel nodded.

"Yeah, gave me a reason to get away from my parents, I love them but their constant fussing was starting to drive me crazy," Daniel replied. "I have to say, it's really good to be back, I've missed this place more than I thought I would."

"Do we know when everyone else is due back?" Vala questioned.

"I know Jack won't be back until this afternoon some time and I think Janet and Cameron are coming with him, I don't know about any of the others. We should go for dinner tonight once everyone is back, celebrate being back together again," Teyla suggested and got several nods from around the table.

"And look who's here," Vala said with a grin and Elizabeth followed the woman's gaze to where Ronon was walking over to them. She looked at Teyla who smiled and jumped up from her chair as he neared the table. She practically jumped on the poor man, wrapping her arms around him as though she hadn't seen him in years.

"Missed you too Teyla," Ronon said with a smirk as Teyla stepped back and pushed herself up to kiss him. She stepped back as they parted and punched him in the arm.

"Ever heard of writing to a person?" she questioned as Ronon rubbed his arm.

"I wrote to you every week," he replied defensively.

"Not nearly enough," she told him as the two of them sat down at the table.

"Teyla, I only wrote to you once a week and you didn't punch me," Elizabeth stated.

"I'm not dating you," Teyla said and Vala started laughing.

"It's so good to be back."

* * *

><p>He'd gotten back to school later than he'd planned but with one of major roads between his home and the school cut off due to bandit activity in the area there was little choice but to go a longer way around. Unpacking had been quick and easy though, everything was now back where it had been last year and in a way it felt like he had never left. Seven weeks was a long time though and he was happy to be back. The summer had been strange, things that had once been familiar to him had changed and he had found himself reading through his school work more than he would have expected, just to maintain that link back to his life here. It was amazing really, how less than a year could change so much.<p>

It had been good to see his friends although many of them felt like strangers to him now, none of them had been accepted at Pegasus though a few of them had gone to the other two magic schools. Some of them had changed into people he no longer felt like he knew, others hadn't changed at all and that only made him realise how much he had changed. His parents had been glad to have him home, if only to drag him to one Governors function after another and ensure that his grooming to become the future Governor continued.

He made his way to the cafeteria knowing that his friends would gather there as they arrived. He felt oddly nervous, Elizabeth's last letter to him had said she would be arriving in the morning, he hadn't seen her since the end of the last school year and he knew there was a lot they needed to talk about, a lot they needed to figure out. He'd missed her over the summer, he'd known he would but he hadn't expected her to be in his thoughts quite as much as she had been. They had written to each other almost once a week, there had been a week where he had been too busy to sit down and write and another week where she had.

It was easy enough to find the rest of the group in the busy cafeteria; they were sitting at their usual table. He walked over to join them, noticing immediately that Elizabeth wasn't there. Jack, Cameron, Janet and Teal'c also hadn't arrived yet but everyone else was present and accounted for.

"John," Teyla jumped up from her chair and hugged him when he neared the table.

"She's been doing that to everybody," Ronon smirked and John smiled and hugged her back.

"Elizabeth is here," she said as though she'd read his earlier thoughts. "She just went to check on Carlie."

He'd actually forgotten Elizabeth's sister was attending the school this year. He hoped it wouldn't cause problems for Elizabeth, he remembered all too well how quickly she had backed into her shell again when her father and sister had been visiting the school for parents week last year, he hoped the summer hadn't made her go back to that. John sat down at the table next to Teyla, quickly insinuating himself in a conversation over which country had the better football team.

"Clearly it is Chulak," Teal'c stated as he seemed to appear out of nowhere behind Kate who jumped at the sound of his voice.

"Teal'c, don't sneak up on people like that," Kate scolded him to which Teal'c just raised an eyebrow and smiled.

"When did you get back?" Radek asked him as the big guy took a seat the table.

"Twenty minutes ago," he replied.

"Hey Elizabeth," Teyla's voice caught John's attention and he turned to see Elizabeth walking over to them, taking a seat opposite him.

"Hey," he said as he caught her eyes, not knowing what to say but feeling he needed to speak.

"Hi," she replied quietly.

"How is Carlie?" Teyla questioned after several moments of awkward silence.

"She's fine, complaining about not having enough room in her closet for all of things and the fact that she has to climb up several flights of stairs to get to her room," Elizabeth replied. "She wasn't happy about having to carry some of her own things up there either. I had to remind her she's not at home and she doesn't have a staff here to do everything for her."

"She'll get used to it," Teyla stated and Elizabeth gave her a disbelieving look to which Teyla laughed. "Are you coming for dinner later John, we're all going to celebrate being back?"

"Sounds good," John replied and Teyla nodded turning to Ronon.

"We should go and book a table, otherwise we'll probably never get one," she told him.

"Why do I have to go?" Ronon questioned as Teyla stood up.

"You don't," she said, picking up her bag. "I'll just go alone, it's fine."

John smiled as Ronon sighed and stood up, there was no way he was letting her walk through the forest to town on her own and she knew it. He watched the two of them leave and then looked at Elizabeth as she gave Teyla a quick wave. She seemed okay, like spending the summer with her family hadn't had any negative effect on her. The letters she had sent him were usually pretty brief and lacking in detail so he'd never been able to tell from them.

"How was your summer?" he asked.

"It was fine, one Governors event after another and full of Carlie drama, it's good to be back here though," she told him and he decided he'd get more details later. She smiled though as if she could tell where his thoughts were leading. "Don't worry, I'm not going to hide in one of my books and disengage myself from the group. Teyla already forbid me."

He smiled, "That's good to know."

"I guess we need to talk at some point," she said as though she would rather do anything else.

"Yeah."

* * *

><p>Jack shoved his suitcase under his bed and finally sat down. Everything was unpacked and he was ready to face another year. He had a little bit of time left before John would come knocking on his door so he allowed himself to fall back into the bed. He'd missed this room, the summer had been long and not nearly as interesting as he'd expected. Last year had been an interesting year to say the least, full of ups and downs but on the whole, this place had already given him a lot of good memories.<p>

He looked at the drawer where he had hidden his vial of Allinyas last year, admittedly not among the good memories. His addiction had only been for a short time but it had been long enough that, had his friends not intervened, he could have done some irreparable damage to his life. He'd barely thought about the drug all summer, the only times it had really entered his mind was when he was thinking about Alex. At home everything was a reminder of his brother and that in turn would remind him of the coping mechanism he had turned to, a drug induced obliviousness. He was confident now that he didn't need the drug, that he could have it put in front of him and he wouldn't want to take it. It had been an emotional dependency and he had learned to deal with the emotions in a better way. Still, he would rather not test that theory.

The knocking on the door had to be John and he called for his friend to come in while he sat up and tried to figure out what he'd done with his jacket. John entered, ready for their meal in town and waited by the door for him.

"All unpacked?" John questioned and Jack nodded as he spotted his jacket over the back of his desk chair. He grabbed it and left, locking the door behind him and the two of them made their way down the stairs of the tower.

"So have you seen Elizabeth yet?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," John replied looking down. "It was kind of awkward."

"Well, you haven't seen each other for seven weeks and even before that, you never had the time to figure out what was going on between the two of you," Jack replied and John looked at him with a smirk.

"Spoken by a man who sounds like he knows exactly how that feels," he said as the two of them stepped out of the tower and headed toward the cafeteria. "Have you had a chance to see Sam yet?"

"No, she wasn't in the cafeteria when I got here," Jack replied as the cafeteria came into a view and he suddenly felt nervous.

John laughed, "That's exactly what I looked like when I walked in here earlier."

"At least there's somebody in this boat with me," Jack stated. Sam wasn't in the cafeteria yet but given that she would be coming in with Vala he wasn't all that surprised. Teyla and Elizabeth weren't there yet either, which again was no surprise.

"Hey Daniel," Jack greeted as he dropped into the chair next to him.

"Sam's nervous too," Daniel told him with an amused smile. Jack glared at him but was silently glad to know that he wasn't the only one. Teyla and Elizabeth arrived and Jack watched as Elizabeth sat herself next to John, the two of them sharing an awkward smile before Teyla started up a conversation.

"Jack."

He'd been so busy watching John and Elizabeth that he hadn't noticed Sam and Vala walk in. He jumped out of his chair and was sure he heard Daniel laughing behind him. Sam smiled but before either of them could say anything Rodney cut in.

"Alright, everyone's here, let's go, I'm starving," he announced to the group and everyone got up, grabbing their things and heading for the door. Jack fell in step beside Sam as they followed, allowing themselves to fall a little behind.

"Did you have a good summer?" Sam asked him and he nodded.

"Yeah, it was fine, missed it here though," he replied. "Everyone thought I'd gone crazy, missing school, but I guess this place has that effect."

"I think it's more about the people," Sam said and Jack followed her gaze to where Rodney and Laura were bickering up ahead and although they couldn't hear what was being said the word 'lemon' was carried back to them. "We haven't even been here a whole day yet and already he's annoyed her enough to make her threaten him with lemons."

"In all fairness to him though, he doesn't have to do much in order to make her threaten him, he just seems to get under her skin, the same way he does with you," Jack replied and Sam looked prepared to protest the point but then sighed.

"He does know how to push certain people's buttons," Sam conceded.

"So," Jack began in a moment of courage. "When we're all settled back in here, how about I take you out for that dinner I promised you before we left, if you're still interested?"

Sam smiled, "I'm still interested, and dinner sounds good."

"Good," Jack said. "I guess we'll talk about... this then."

They caught up with the rest of the group and Jack felt better for knowing that, at the very least, he'd addressed whatever was going on with him and Sam. John and Elizabeth seemed to be avoiding talking about it, in fact they were almost avoiding each other. Elizabeth was walking with Laura and Janet and John was talking to Cameron and Radek.

They'd eaten at the restaurant Ronon and Teyla had booked before but Jack noticed one of their other favourite restaurants had shut down over the summer, the building was boarded up and the sign that had been above the door was gone. Seven weeks really could change a lot. It didn't take them long to order their food and the starters were brought out pretty quickly, the usual battle for sausage rolls started almost immediately.

"Rodney, you can't have that many to yourself," Laura stated.

"Why not?" Rodney questioned, putting an arm around his plate protectively to ensure no one could take any. "There's still some left and there are other things people can have."

"I told you we should have ordered more sausage rolls," Marcus said with a shake of his head. "It's like we never learn."

"So, who has funny summer stories?" Cameron asked and Jack immediately turned a glare on Janet when the brunette opened her mouth.

"Me, Jack and Cameron went hiking," she said despite the glare. "Jack fell down a hole, it was a hunter's trap, he was there one second and gone the next."

Cameron started laughing. "He was covered in dirt and dead leaves, yelling at us to get him out but we were both laughing too much to do anything about it. We have a picture but I didn't bring it with me."

"And then he started freaking out because there was a huge spider down there," Janet added, barely getting the words passed her laughter. "I've never seen anything like it, he screamed like a girl."

"I did not," Jack protested. "It was a very manly sound of surprise."

"It's really hard to pull someone out of a hole while you're laughing that much," Cameron finished, the whole group laughing now.

"Alright, moving on to someone else before they pull out anymore stories about me," Jack announced quickly.

"I don't know Jack, we could probably fill up this entire meal with embarrassing stories of you," Janet replied.

"Yes but I wouldn't want to hog the spotlight, onto someone else," he said and Kate and Marcus launched into a story about Laura trying to bake for a party her mother was having just as their main course arrived.

"We'd said we'd come by early and help," Marcus said. "Her mom pointed us to the kitchen and then we heard the little explosion. We went running in and Laura was sat in the middle of the floor, covered in flour and slightly charred from whatever had blown up in her face."

"I told mom I didn't want to do any of the cooking but she insisted she was busy with everything else and it would be a big help, blah, blah, blah," Laura sulked. "I can't cook."

"That was apparent," Kate stated.

"I'm sad I missed that, I didn't get there until after the party had started," John said shaking his head and laughing.

"Well, we had to help her clean up so be glad you weren't there early," Marcus told him. "Unfortunately we don't have any pictures."

* * *

><p>Dinner had been filled with embarrassing stories and it was coming up on curfew by the time they left the restaurant. They probably had just enough time to get back on campus without getting into trouble or having to sneak passed the guard patrol. The group was pretty rowdy as they headed into the forest and Carson told everyone to quieten down before every wolf in the forest was alerted to their presence. It did little to lessen the volume of the group but it did make them all look around them for a moment, they'd met the local forest wolves once before and no one was eager to do it again.<p>

Elizabeth smiled to John as he came to walk beside her. Aside from the admission that they needed to talk neither of them had said anything about what was going on between them, they'd said very little to each other at all. She could tell it was making him feel edgy and she wasn't enjoying the awkwardness of it either but surrounded by their friends was hardly the right time to talk about it so it would have to wait.

"Rodney, was that your sister I saw you with earlier?" Kate asked and Rodney grumbled something under his breath before replying.

"Probably, why?" he questioned.

"Just curious, she was pretty, seemed nice," Kate told him and Rodney narrowed his eyes at her.

"Why does that seem to surprise you and how would you know she was nice, at the most you saw her with me from a distance?" he asked her and she shrugged.

"It doesn't really surprise me," Kate replied and at that she got several raised eyebrows and disbelieving looks from the other members of the group. "Okay, maybe it is a little bit surprising and I'm good at reading body language and from what little I saw, she seemed nice. Don't be so defensive."

"I'm not defensive," Rodney huffed and Kate rolled her eyes.

"Yes you are."

They made it back to the school only a few minutes after curfew which would only get them a warning and sent to their rooms if the guards saw them.

"Talk to you tomorrow?" John questioned and Elizabeth nodded.

"I'll see you then," she replied and then ran to catch up with the rest of the girls that were heading to Raildon Halls.

"I am so glad to be back," Laura announced just as they were spotted by a couple of guards and told it was passed curfew and they should go back to their dorm.

"Let's try for a less eventful semester," Janet said with a sigh. "All that drama last year was exhausting."

"No kidding," Laura replied.

"Well it's not exactly going to be drama free, Cal's court date is coming up and I got letter a couple of weeks ago that Mathos is appealing his case," Teyla told them all.

"Right," Laura said, "I could almost have forgotten we have to testify at Cal's trial, almost but not quite."

"At least then he'll be in jail and we won't have to worry about him anymore," Elizabeth said. "At least not unless he appeals as well."

"Then let's hope he doesn't," Janet said, "and I did say _less _eventful, not completely uneventful."

The four of them reached the dorm building and went their separate ways. Teyla collapsed on her bed as soon as she got back into the room. Elizabeth grabbed her pyjamas and went into the bathroom to change, coming out to find Teyla writing at her desk. She dropped the pen as soon as she saw the bathroom was free and went to get changed herself. Elizabeth got into her bed, settling back against her pillows and picking up her book from the nightstand, it really was good to be back.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors Note: I'm so happy to see so many people are still interested in this story despite how long it's been since the last part. Thanks to everyone for sticking with me and special thanks to; Mrs Rosemary Weir, Steph7085, belanna30, Emily, Bunnylass, sam'n'jackforever and Kuroima for their reviews. **

Chapter 2

"Teyla, get up."

Elizabeth sat down at her dresser and began to dry her hair hoping the noise from the hairdryer would wake her roommate. She'd almost forgotten how much Teyla hated early mornings, actually Teyla had no problem with early mornings, just early mornings where she actually had to get up, she had no problem on weekends. Once her hair was dry she put the hairdryer down and turned to see that Teyla had merely turned over and pulled the cover over her head.

"Teyla, you need to get up," she called to her as she brushed her hair and put a little make up on. She walked over to her wardrobe pulling out a loose knee length blue skirt and a blue t shirt to match it. She'd looked out of the window earlier and the sun was shining, she could already tell it was going to be a hot day. She looked over at Teyla again when she was dressed, her roommate still hadn't gotten up. She walked over to the bed and gave her a push, to which Teyla groaned.

"Teyla if you don't get up now, you're going to have to make a choice between showering and eating," Elizabeth told her and with another groan Teyla's head appeared from beneath her covers.

"I hate you right now," Teyla stated, sending a glare at Elizabeth which might have been intimidating had her roommate not been half asleep.

"I know but you still have to get up," Elizabeth told her and went to get her necklace from her dresser. It was the one John had bought her for her birthday last year; it had quickly become her favourite piece of jewellery. Teyla threw back her covers and disappeared into the bathroom and Elizabeth grabbed her bag from beside her desk, putting her pens and paper into it ready for her classes that day. She was kind of glad her schedule was the same as last year, she liked it the way it was, it was a shame it would change once she became a senior but she supposed it would have to when she picked up her senior classes.

Twenty minute later Elizabeth was knocking on the bathroom door. "Teyla, I really don't want to have to miss breakfast."

It was another couple of minutes before Teyla emerged from the bathroom in a pink towel. "You need to learn patience."

"And you need to learn to get up when the alarm goes off," Elizabeth replied. Teyla managed to get ready surprisingly quick, it helped that she'd picked out her clothes the night before. The two of them headed down to the cafeteria with just enough time to eat before their first class.

"You two are running a little late aren't you?" Jack questioned when the two of them finally sat down with their breakfast. Elizabeth glanced at John, the two of them had talked briefly yesterday and agreed to go for dinner on Friday once their first week back was out of the way, they had a lot the needed to talk about. Things had been a little less awkward since then but Elizabeth had a feeling their date was going to be a different story.

"Blame Teyla, she wouldn't get up," Elizabeth stated.

"That's not a great start is it?" John questioned.

"It's really not my fault, there was a party in our building last night, the music was loud and once that was turned off people were running around the corridors drunk into the early hours of this morning, kept us awake most of the night," Teyla explained.

"That explains where Laura and Janet are then," Marcus stated. "They're probably using our free period this morning to catch up on the sleep they missed."

"Lucky them," Teyla replied grumpily. "I hope whoever it was running around that building last night got detention for the rest of their lives."

Elizabeth finished her breakfast and cleaned up her rubbish before glancing at the clock. "We should get to class."

Teyla hurried through the rest of her food and the group left the cafeteria and went their separate ways in the main building. The spell casting classroom was already pretty full when they arrived but they were able to find four empty chairs together near the front. Professor Penrose arrived only a few minutes behind them and quickly called the class to order.

"Welcome to your second year of Spell Casting. Last year we worked on the foundation of spell casting and you learned the basics of casting a spell. This year we're going to be learning some new spells that you made need to use in your lives and in the second semester you'll be learning how to create your own spells."

Penrose launched into a long speech about their syllabus for the year and what would be expected of them. Elizabeth was already making notes and John was already trying to copy her work because he'd missed parts of it himself. It was almost the end of the class when Penrose had finished and most of the class's attention had long since drifted to other things.

"Alright, I know this has been a bit of a boring information giving class so were going to finish up early," Penrose finally said and the class were packing their bags before he'd even finished speaking. "I'll see you all next lesson."

There was a rush to get out of the door then, Elizabeth saw Kolya push one of the smaller kids out of his way, Laden and Sora following in his wake.

"Some things never change," Jack muttered as he grabbed the guy Kolya had knocked over by the arm and pulled him up from the floor.

* * *

><p>The day seemed to have lasted forever; all of their classes were the same introduction to the year stuff. Cameron was glad when he walked out of his last class with Ronon, Teal'c and Vala, they headed straight for the cafeteria for an early dinner. Half of their group were already there having had a free period at the end of the day.<p>

"Considering all I've really done today is sit and listen to teachers talk about what we're going to do this year, I'm exhausted," Cameron stated as he sat down beside John who was half way through a burger. "That looks good."

"It is good," John replied with a mouth full of food.

"I want one," Cameron said and immediately got back up. There was a queue at cafeteria so he took up his place, Ronon joining him a moment later. He looked back at the table to see Sam, Rodney and Radek arriving. Rodney didn't even bother sitting down, he came straight to the queue, glaring at the older student who got there before him.

Cameron reached the front and grabbed a tray, getting himself a burger and fries and looking over the choices of desert. He was about to go without one when one of the cooks brought out some chocolate cake and he quickly grabbed a slice.

"Jack will be up here in a minute for that," Ronon said as the two of them paid for their meals and made their way back to the table.

"That wasn't there when I went up there," Jack said, his fork stopping half way to his mouth as his eyes fell on the cake Cameron was putting on the table.

"They just brought it out," Cameron stated and Jack immediately stood up and joined the back of the cafeteria queue, trying to see around the other students to make sure the cake was still there.

"He'll turn into a cake one day," Sam stated as she watched him go.

"I'm not even sure he'd consider that a bad thing," Teyla laughed.

"Have you guys met the new potions teacher?" Cameron asked and Teyla raised her hand.

"Jack and I had potions today," she said. "Professor Cray is so much better than Trell, he actually seems happy to be teaching."

"And his voice has more than one tone to it so I actually made it through class without nearly falling asleep," Cameron added.

"Yeah, I feel bad for the people who end up with Trell again this year," Ronon stated. "I'm just glad we don't have him."

"With our luck," John looked at Elizabeth. "We'll have Trell."

"If we do, I'm blaming you for jinxing us," Elizabeth replied and John feigned a hurt expression. Marcus, Laura and Janet arrived then, the three of them dropping into the empty chairs with heavy sighs and dropping three very heavy looking text books onto the table with thuds.

"Be careful," Rodney complained from where he had sat down with his food only moments before. "Some of us are trying to eat here."

"All of the teacher are just going through introduction stuff, but no, Professor Antar had to dive right in with the work and handout these things for us all to read this semester, we've already got a reading assignment," Marcus complained as he leaned on the book. "Has anyone else had defence today?"

"We did," Carson replied. "We already took our books back to our rooms, no sense carrying them around when we don't need to."

Jack finally returned to the table and sat down with a smile on his face, cake in hand. "Last piece."

* * *

><p>Elizabeth knocked on Carlie's door and waited the few seconds it took her to answer it. Carlie greeted her with a half smile and stepped back to allow her into the room. It was clearly Carlie's room now, there were piles of clothes everywhere, the dresser was covered in makeup and expensive jewellery. The smell of her sister's favourite perfume hung in the air and various possessions were placed around the room.<p>

"Looks like you're all settled in," Elizabeth commented as Carlie closed the door.

"There's not enough room for all my clothes, what am I supposed to do?" Carlie questioned with a sigh.

Elizabeth resisted the urge to tell her once again that she had warned her not to bring so much stuff. Instead she opened her sister's wardrobe, the rail was full, the clothes packed so tightly she'd be lucky to get anything out of there without dragging half the wardrobe with it. The bottom was full of shoes, placed side by side and the shelf above the rail was full as well.

"If you put your shoes somewhere else you can get some more of your clothes in the bottom of here," Elizabeth suggested and Carlie looked at her like she'd gone crazy.

"These are expensive clothes Elizabeth, I can't just put them in the bottom of the wardrobe, they'll get creased. Can't they just bring me up another wardrobe?" she questioned.

"You only get one wardrobe Carlie, and it's already bigger than the ones they have in standard dorms. If you put your clothes in carefully they'll be fine, Teyla has lots of her stuff in the bottom of her wardrobe," Elizabeth informed her. "And they'll get more creased if you leave them lying around the room like that, at least in there they'll be out of the way. Are your drawers full?"

"Of course they are," Carlie replied.

"How was your first day?" Elizabeth questioned, changing the subject while she had the chance.

"It was fine, boring mostly, the teachers were just telling us about their courses, it really wasn't very interesting," Carlie said with a shrug as she sat down at her dresser.

"Did you make any new friends?" Elizabeth asked her.

"I'm nit five years old Elizabeth," Carlie replied indignantly.

"I know that, I'm just asking about the people you've met," Elizabeth told her with a sigh.

"I met a few people, there's one girl who lives here in the tower, she's in most of my classes, Sasha Channing, she's the daughter of an Alteran council member," Carlie told her and Elizabeth nodded her head. She sounded like the perfect friend for Carlie, important but not too important. "I was just about to write a letter to our father, have you written to him yet?"

"I'll do it this weekend," Elizabeth replied and Carlie gave her a disapproving look.

"Surely you want to write to him before then?" she said questioningly and Elizabeth shrugged.

"I don't have much to say to him right now, I'll write at the weekend," she told her.

"I suppose I'll tell him you're well then," Carlie said.

"You do that," Elizabeth replied, they both knew their father wasn't particularly interested in what Elizabeth was up to as long as it didn't reflect badly on him or make things difficult for Carlie. "I just wanted to see how your first day was and make sure you were settled in so I'll get going. You know where my room is if you need me."

"Just one more thing Elizabeth," Carlie stood up and Elizabeth stopped on her way to the door and turned back to her sister, she was already pretty sure she wasn't going to like this. "I hope you've given some more thought to what our father and I said, about those friends of yours. They're just using you Elizabeth."

"I can pick my own friends Carlie," Elizabeth told her and then left the room, closing the door behind her. Teyla was already in their room when she got back there and Elizabeth walked in, locking the door behind her and then dropping onto her bed with a sigh.

"Carlie is her usual lovely self then I take it," Teyla said.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors Note: Big thanks to Steph7085, Emily, Kuroima, 44hilla44 and Ealasaid Una for their reviews on the last chapter. **

Chapter 3

Jack hadn't wanted to wait until the weekend, he'd wanted to figure out where he and Sam stood with each other so they could either continue as the freinds they had been over the last year or move toward being something else. Sam had agreed that they needed to know what was going on between them and so the two of them had decided to head into town for a late dinner and talk about it. Jack had picked a restaurant they hadn't eaten at before, it was upscale and classy, just a touch romantic but not enough that there would be any pressure on them.

They'd made casual conversation as they'd ordered their food and made it through their starters, Jack was suprised at how easy it was to talk to her so casually when they both knew the big issue still needed to be addressed. When their meals arrived they lapsed into a mostly confortable silence as they ate, occasionally one of them attempting conversation or glancing at the other awkwardly. It wasn't until they had both finished eating their meals that Jack finally approached the subject they'd come here to talk about.

"So," he said conversationally. The ease of the night had almost had him fooled into believing this was going to be an easy conversation, the words abandoned him now though. Sam's smile was both amused and sympathetic.

"I guess this is the part where we get all awkward," she said. She took a deep breath, letting it back out in a determined sigh as though she was stealing herself for her next move. "I like you Jack, more than just as a friend. There I've said it, that's my bold and awkward move of the night."

Jack smiled, "Well that makes this a whole lot easier on me, almost doesn't seem fair. I like you too, as more than a friend."

She looked imensely relieved that she hadn't just made a fool out of herself and he realised the risk she'd taken by admitting to her feelings first so that he wouldn't have to. She smiled then and he couldn't help but smile back as he cursed himself inwardly for feeling like he was thirtteen years old again and the prettiest girl in the class had just told him she'd go to the dance with him.

"Now that we have that part over with," Sam began, her smile fading from her eyes just slighly, replaced once more by nerves. "What do we do about it?"

He figured this time it was only fair that he be the one to put himself out there and really, if anyone ever asked, he wanted to say that he was the one to make this move, not her. "I guess this is the part where I ask you on a date."

"Isn't that what this is?" she questioned, gesturing to the restaurant.

"This is more like a fact finding dinner," he told her. "A pre-date date."

"A pre-date date?" she questioned in amusement and he nodded his head.

"So, how about it, will you go on a date with me?" he asked her.

"Yes I will," she told him laughing and he congratulated himself on a job well done, that went far better than when he'd asked Marie Johnson to the dance when he was thirteen. "Do you think John and Elizabeth's date will go this well?"

"I hope so, they've been dancing around the issue all week, I'm starting to think that stopping Teyla from locking them in a small, confined space last year was a mistake," Jack told her. "I guess we'll just have to wait until Friday to find out."

"Saturday actually," Sam told him and he raised an eyebrow at her questioningly. "They're not going out until Friday night and unless you and John have late night gossip sessions you haven't told me about then my guess is you won't find out until Saturday."

Jack glared at her for a moment. "We do not have gossip sessions and if we did talk it would be manly conversations."

"Of course it would."

* * *

><p>The tower was still fairly quiet even though classes started in less than an hour. A lot of students were still snoozing through their alarm clocks and would be waking up shortly and rushing to get ready. John made his way out of the building along with Jack, he'd learn early on last year that if he didn't get up in time for breakfast he wouldn't be able to concentrate in classes. It wouldn't have bothered him before but since coming here it hadn't been as easy to coast through school, he had to work for his education here.<p>

"So how did it go with Sam last night?" John asked as they passed a half asleep student who couldn't be moving any slower if he tried.

"Great actually, I thought the whole thing was going to be awkward but it wasn't, it was just... really easy," Jack told him, smiling slightly at the memory.

"Does that mean you guys are official now?" John questioned.

"I guess so, we both admitted there was something there, I asked her on a date," Jack explained and John frowned.

"I thought you were on a date?" he said.

"It was more like a pre-date date," Jack stated and John laughed. The two of them finally reached the bottom of the stairs, John was glad his room wasn't higher up the tower, he felt sorry for those who had to walk down all those stairs.

"Well, if it isn't Sheppard and O'Neill, you two girls go anywhere without each other?" a voice asked them as they exited the building. Kolya walked over to them, Laden on his heels but there was no sign of his other lackey, Sora must not have come out to play yet.

"Could ask you the same thing," Jack replied

"Stay out of my way this year," Kolya ordered. "And, let's try to stay off the drugs."

Jack made a move toward Kolya but John quickly put a hand to his chest to stop him. Kolya smirked, seemingly proud of himself as he walked away.

"He's really not worth it," John stated.

Even though the dorm buildings were relatively quiet the cafeteria was the exact opposite. It was already packed full of students trying to get their breakfast before classes started and eager first years talking about their first week of school. The excitement would probably last through next week when they really got into the courses but after that it would quickly die down and they'd be dragging themselves into their early morning classes. They were almost the last of their group to arrive, only Rodney and Radek were still missing and after getting their breakfast they joined the others at the table.

John watched as Jack sat next to Sam, the two of them sharing a smile before Vala started digging her elbow into Sam's ribs with a wink. He kind of envied Jack that he had sorted out his relationship with Sam, John and Elizabeth were still in some wierd limbo where they'd acknowledged they needed to talk but had decided to put it to one side until the end of the week. He looked down the table to where she was sitting with Teyla and Janet, the three of them in a deep discussion about something. A few more days and they would both have answers, hopefully they would be the answers that he wanted.

* * *

><p>"Tell me again why I'm here," Elizabeth said with a sigh as Teyla grabbed her arm and dragged her into yet another store. This was the fifth store they'd been in and Teyla had yet to decide on a dress for the weekend. Vala was no better, even if she was carrying three bags full of new clothes, none of it was, apparently, the right dress.<p>

"Because we like shopping," Teyla told her.

"I did before I met you," Elizabeth muttered as Teyla held a short blue dress up over her, eyeing it to see if looked good on her friend. This, she was pretty sure, was the real reason she'd been dragged along on this trip, so Teyla could shop for her again. "I'm not buying anything."

"What if we find the perfect dress for you?" Teyla questioned shaking her head and putting the dress back on the rail only to pick out the same one again in a different shade of blue.

"Sometimes the dress chooses you Elizabeth," Vala called from another rack of clothes where she already had several items of clothing draped over her arm.

"Exactly," Teyla smiled.

"I'm still not buying anything," Elizabeth stated. "I have plenty of clothes already, a lot of which you made me buy last year, I'm sure I'll have something."

"Fine," Teyla sulked and put the dress back on the rack. Elizabeth looked up as she heard the sound of the door to the store opening and saw Carlie walking in. Her sister was with another girl that she didn't recognise and she debated for a moment whether to go and say hello or duck and hide amongst the clothes. The decision was made for her when Carlie spotted her, a small smile appearing on her sister's face as she made her way over.

"Hello Elizabeth, I didn't think I'd see you here," Carlie greeted gaining Teyla's attention. Her friend stopped shopping and came to stand by her side and Elizabeth almost had to laugh at the protective move. "And you're with... your friend. This is Sasha Channing, her father is on the Alteran Council, she's in a lot of my classes."

"It's nice to meet you," Elizabeth said and the girl gave her a smile that was as fake as the leather jacket Vala was carrying over.

"A plesure, Carlie has told me all about you," Sasha replied.

"So, what are you guys shopping for, anything in particular?" Carlie questioned conversationally.

"We're looking for new clothes to wear on Saturday night," Vala offered. Elizabeth was fairly certain that this was the first time Vala had met Carlie but she seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her.

"What's happening on Saturday?" Carlie asked as though she thought there might be some big event that she hadn't been invited to.

"Nothing big, we're hitting the clubs on Saturday night, first time since we got back so we have to look our best," Vala smiled.

"You go to the night clubs?" Carlie questioned looking at her sister with a disbelieving expression.

"Sometimes, it's a good night out," Elizabeth replied. She could see Teyla grin next to her as though sensing an opportunity and Elizabeth groaned inwardly as her roomate picked the blue dress back up.

"I was just telling her how good this dress looked on her, what do you think Carlie?" Teyla asked and Carlie eyed the dress for a moment.

"It's a little shorter than what you would usually wear isn't it?" Carlie questioned and Elizabeth smiled and shrugged, it was shorter than Carlie was used to seeing Elizabeth wear but that had been before Teyla had selected half of her wardrobe. She'd never been big on the social side of teenage life, or any kind of teenage life, she'd always been focused entirely on her school work and duties as a governors child. She was still just as focused on those things now but she fit more of a social life in now.

"It's perfect for a night out, I know it's a lot like the red one you got last year but I think the colour is great on you. I think you should try it on," Teyla said picking up a nearby dress. "And I'm going to try this one on."

She grabbed Elizabeth's arm and dragged her in the direction of the changing rooms, saying a quick goodbye to Carlie and shouting for Vala along the way. As soon as they were behind the curtain Elizabeth glared at her freind who merely shrugged.

"No one ever said I wasn't an opportunist, now try the dress on."

* * *

><p>Elizabeth took a deep breath as she looked at herself in the mirror, she was almost as nervous about this date as she had been about their first date before the summer. She had decided to wear her black dress, she'd also planned to wear her shoes with the small heals but Teyla had hidden them and insisted she should wear the silver stilletos to match the silver accessories, it was a good thing she'd gotten a lot of practice walking in them last year.<p>

"You look great," Teyla told her appearing in the reflection behind her. "You don't need to be so nervous, you already know he likes you and you've had dinner with him before, just make conversation, be yourself."

Elizabeth nodded just as there was a knock at the door and Teyla ran over to answer it. Ronon walked in, dropping a quick kiss on her lips as he passed her. "You look nice," he told Elizabeth who smiled and took another breath.

"She's nervous," Teyla told him coming back over to her.

"Thanks Teyla," Elizabeth said straigtening her dress and putting her thin black jacket on. She picked up her purse from the bed and there was another knock on the door. Teyla ran to answer it again and let John into the room, he looked almost as nervous as she did, that made her feel a little better.

"You look beautiful," he told her. "Are you ready to go?"

Elizabeth nodded and followed him to the door, Teyla on her heals. "Don't hurry back," she said closing the door when Elizabeth was barely through it.

"I don't wanna know," John said with a glance at the now closed door. He offered her his arm and they made their way out of the building and off the campus. The road to town was pretty busy, it was Friday night and a lot of students were heading into town. Elizabeth was glad for their distracting presence, it meant they couldn't really talk about anything significant until they got to the restaurant. They'd decided to go somewhere they'd eaten before with the rest of the group so ordering the food was easy, they both knew what they wanted before they even got there.

"So," John said once the waiter had left.

"So," Elizabeth repeated, neither of them knowing where to start this conversation.

"This is kind of rediculous," John stated. "I mean we've both already admitted we like each other, surely that should make this easier."

Elizabeth smiled and shook her head. "Apparently not."

"Alright, I'll go first, I like you Elizabeth, a lot, I missed you over the summer, more than I thought I would. I want to see where this thing goes... but no pressure," he rambled quickly probably fearing he wouldn't get it all out if he stopped anywhere in the middle. Their starters arrived then and Elizabeth thanked the waitress.

"I don't have a great track record with relationships, of any kind," Elizabeth stated, the fear that had been eating away at her since John had first addmitted to having feelings for her. He was a close friend, she didn't want to jepordise that by starting a different kind of relationship and having it blow up in their faces.

"Me either, maybe we just figure it out as we go," John replied and Elizabeth gave him a disbelieving look.

"Maybe," she said and he smiled, the expression so hopeful she couldn't help but smile back and shake her head. "So what does this mean?"

"I think it mean's we're... dating?" John said a questioning tone to his voice.

"I guess it does," she answered, her tone also questioning and they both started laughing.

"I'm glad we have that settled," John said and picked up his drink. "So what do you think Ronon and Teyla are up to?"

Elizabeth glared at him.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Authors Note: Kind of a short chapter here but I've got a pretty busy week ahead and I wanted to get something posted. **

Chapter 4

Carson arrived in the cafeteria dressed for a night on the town. He hadn't been a big fan of nights like this before he came to Pegasus, it had never really been his scene but he found he rather enjoyed them here. He figured it probably had something to do with the company, the friends he had made here always made it a good night out, they all stuck together which his friends back home hadn't always done.

Everyone but Vala and Sam were there but he was fairly certain he'd just heard Vala's voice coming from behind him as he walked through the door so they were probably not far behind. He moved to stand with Marcus and Laura, the two of them bickering about something but he couldn't quite figure out what.

"Alright, everyone's here, let's go," Vala said excitedly as she and Sam joined the group. Everyone began to move, leaving the school campus and making their way along the road through the forest to town. They were a little later going out than they usually were so there was already a lot of students around, many of the clubs had queues forming outside them including their favourite club, it was probably the longest queue of them all.

"We can queue for who knows how long or we can go somewhere else," Cameron stated and the group decided to go somewhere else. There was another club around the corner that they often went to and there was only a small queue of people there. They got in the line and were at the front within minutes. Carson pulled his ID card out of his wallet to prove he was over 18 and then paid the entry fee, recieving a blue ink stamp on the back of his hand to show he had paid for his entry. Once everyone was inside they headed through to the club, the loud music and flashing lights assaulting their senses before they were even through the door.

Vala and Teyla were heading for the dance floor before everyone was even inside, Teyla dragging a groaning Ronon along with her. Carson smiled at the sight, Ronon and Teyla were so different, he never would have put them together when they'd first met but here they were, almost a year later, still together.

The two other couples in the group were clearly still trying to find their feet. Jack and Sam were quickly getting comfortable with their new relationship but Carson could tell they were still getting used to having less boundaries between them. John and Elizabeth weren't acting much different to the way they had before but that was probably because they had already been very close before thay had become an official item. They seemed to keep looking at each other for permission though, before they would hold hands or even stand together.

"Carson, dance with me?" Laura questioned jolting Carson from his thoughts. "Marcus and Cameron are both trying to spoil my fun."

Carson looked over at the two men who shrugged as they joined the mass of people trying to get to the bar. He turned back to Laura who looked at him pleadingly and he sighed and nodded, not bothering to shout his answer over the music. She grinned and grabbed his hand, pulling him along to the dance floor behind her. They reached where Teyla was dancing with Ronon, the big guy looking uncomfortable as he always did in these situations but grinning and bearing it for Teyla. Vala was dancing with someone he didn't recognise and he figured she'd just grabbed the poor guy from whatever he'd been doing before, not that he looked unwilling in the least.

It was less than an hour before Rodney fell over, he was standing at the bar one second and on the floor looking annoyed the next. Carson and Radek helped him to his feet but he quickly shrugged them off and wondered off in the direction of the toilets, Teal'c following to make sure he didn't get himself in trouble. Carson and Radek joined the rest of the group around one of the tables the girls had grabbed earlier in the night and the guys had guarded since then.

"Come on you guys, we're playing I never," Janet announced and Carson groaned as he sat down, he hated this game.

"My turn, I never..." Daniel paused as he tried to think of something. "Have been in a public place naked."

There was laughing around the table as Jack, John, Vala and Laura drank shots of whatever was being poured out of the bottle Jack was holding.

"There are some stories in there," Janet laughed.

"I was fifteen and my friends dared me to run naked through the school," Jack told them. "I got caught before I made it back to the locker room. It took my dad an hour to smooth things over with the principal and keep the whole thing off my permanent record. It took him a lot longer than that to stop yelling at me every time we were in the same room."

"I lost a bet," Laura stated. "When I was seventeen."

"Same here," Vala told them.

"Prank," John confessed. "Me and a few other guys, it was a rivalry we were having with another school."

"I never..." Kate began but was interrupted by Rodney returning to the table, loudly announcing that he might actually be drunk after all and grabbing one of the shots that were in the middle of the table. "Maybe you've had enough to drink Rodney."

"I know my limits thank you very much," Rodney slurred.

"Which is evidenced by the way you're swaying in your chair," Cameron laughed as he put a hand on Rodney's shoulder to steady him. "Couldn't take it easy for the first night back could you?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Rodney exclaimed throwing his hands up in the air.

"He's going to feel that hangover in the morning."

* * *

><p>Kate woke up gradually, opening her eyes to see her bedroom ceiling. She smiled as she remembered last night, it had been a great night out and they'd all stumbled back onto campus sometime in the early hours of the morning, it was a miracle they'd made it back to the girl's dorms without being seeing by the guard patrols. She hoped everyone had been so lucky but she supposed they'd become experts at it throughout their first year.<p>

She sat up in bed and a wave of nausea and pain hit her so fast she physically flinched. She jumped up from the bed and ran into the bathroom; she only just made it to the toilet before vomiting. She was never drinking that much again, she thought to herself as she sat back against the cool tiled walls of the bathroom a few minutes later. In addition to the headache and the nausea her stomach muscles were now hurting too.

"Well, you brought that on yourself," her roommate said from the doorway with a small smile. She handed Kate a glass of water and some painkillers which she took gratefully. "At least you came back in more or less quietly."

"Did I wake you up?" Kate asked and Carolyn shrugged.

"Just barely, I was back to sleep again within minutes," she told her. "You look like hell."

"Thanks," Kate groaned as she finished the glass of water and dragged herself off the bathroom floor. "I'm going to take a shower."

Twenty minutes later she was showered and dressed, convincing her body she wasn't going to be sick again. "What time is it?"

"A little after noon," her roommate told her from where she sat at her desk writing. "I know you don't like sleeping in but I figured you were better off sleeping through the worst of the hangover."

Kate fought back another wave of nausea. "I think you were probably right, never again."

"You always say that," Carolyn stated.

"I mean it this time," Kate replied.

Carolyn smirked. "You always say that too."

"I'm going to see if I can manage to stomach some food," Kate told her but even just saying it made her stomach roll. "I'll see you later."

It was far too bright outside, Kate decided as she left the girls dorms and made her way to the cafeteria. It was packed with people and way too noisy but she forced herself to make her way through the crowds, spotting some of her friends at one of the tables. She walked over and dropped into one of the empty chairs, taking a deep breath in an effort to settle her rebelling body.

"How are you feeling today Kate?" Teyla questioned looking unusually pale and tired.

"Like hell," Kate told them.

"Join the club," Jack's muffled voice came from where he had his head buried in his arms on the table.

"I dread to think how Rodney feels today," Cameron said as he took several drinks from his bottle of water. "He was completely wasted, he'll be lucky if he even remembers half the night."

"I doubt we'll be seeing him today," John said, he and Elizabeth were sat at the other end of the table, neither of them looked particularly healthy though Elizabeth looked better than most of them. Ronon sat down at the table then, obviously returning from the cafeteria queue. He had a plate full of food and the smell hit Kate straight away, she knew then she wasn't going to be able to stomach eating any time soon. There were several moans and disgusted groans around the table.

"What?" Ronon questioned as he looked at them all. "There's nothing better than some good greasy food after a night out."

That did it, Kate jumped up from the table and headed for the nearest toilets.

* * *

><p>The weekend had come and gone and they were back in classes for their second week. Their second year was already proving much harder than their first, now that the introduction stuff was over with the teachers were diving right in with the work. It was only Monday afternoon but they already had two assignments and several new books to carry around with them. Vala was already bored, World of Magic hadn't been of much interest to her last year and it seemed this year was going to be the same.<p>

She wrote a few words, summarising most of what Professor Niya had said and then continued with her doodle of a smiley face in the margin. She gave the face hair and then decided that it was no longer a guy, it was a girl and so she made the hair longer. She drew in some earings, some nice ones that dangled from her ears and, if doodles could sparkle, they would be sparkly earings too.

"Miss Malduran," Niya said and Vala looked up at the teachers questioning expression and realised that not only had she missed whatever Niya had said but the teacher had singled her out to answer a question.

"No," Vala tried not knowing what the question had been but giving it shot anyway.

"No what?" Niya asked, so that had been the wrong answer.

"Green?" she tried again only for Niya to sigh dramatically.

"Miss Malduran perhaps if you paid as much attention to the class as you did to the picture in your margin you would not only know the answer but the question as well," Niya told her and Vala looked down at her doodle in surprise. There were two rows of people in between her and Niya, how did she know she was drawing? Niya went back to teaching the class, Vala eyeing her warily for a moment before going back to the doodle.

The class finally ended with another reading assignment being handed out and Vala quickly packed her things into her bag. She was glad she had a free period next, she needed to copy Cameron's notes for the parts of the class she's apparently completely zoned out of.

"Green?" Cameron asked her as they sat in the cafeteria and he handed her the notes he'd made. "You really thought that was going to be the answer?"

"Well I figured 'I don't know' was far more likely to be the wrong answer, it was worth a try," Vala replied. "I can't believe she picked that moment to ask me a question, I pay attention for most of the class and as soon as I zone out she ask me question."

"Maybe she asked you a question because she knew you weren't paying attention," Ronon suggested and Vala raised an eyebrow at him.

"And how did she know I was doodling, she couldn't have seen my paper from the front of the class?" Vala asked.

"You really weren't paying attention were you?" Ronon questioned. "She walked around the classroom, went right passed us."

"Well, that explains it," Vala shrugged and made a start on copying the parts of Cameron's notes she'd missed, which was more than she thought.

"You require a better attention span," Teal'c stated.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Authors Note: I was a little sad that I didn't get any reviews on the last chapter but here I am with another one anyway. Thanks to those who are still reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter. **

Chapter 5

Ronon walked into the library, he and Cameron lowering their voices immediately. The library was always relatively quiet no matter how many students were in there. They spotted Teal'c and Teyla at one of the tables at the far end and made their way to them. Books were spread out across the table, opened to various pages or book marked. Ronon sat beside Teyla, pulling his pen and paper from his bag before tucking it under the table.

"Where have you been?" Teyla questioned, she'd expected him to be here almost an hour ago. Cameron pulled over a chair from another table since some of there's had apprenty been taken somewhere else and the only empty chair at their table had Elizabeth's stuff in front of it.

"We were in town," Ronon told her.

"Yeah, I go into a store to buy a new jacket and Ronon wonders off and gets himself a job," Cameron laughed and Teyla turned a raised eyebrow on Ronon.

"A job?" she questioned.

"I was talking to a man, he owns that new club that's opening in a couple of weeks and he's still got a few vacancies on his staff. I couldn't exactly say no when he suggested it, the school has allowed me in on a scholarship and I still recieve some money from the orphange since I'm on the extended care programme whilst I'm in school. It's not much though and I don't want to have to keep taking their money, they have better things to be spending it on," Ronon explained with a shrug, not wanting to get into his financial situation or his upbringing any further than that.

"So you're going to be working in a club?" Teyla questioned.

"I'll be working with security, basically I'm a bouncer," he told her and then looked at Teal'c. "I know you were thinking about getting a job so I told him I had a friend who might be interested. He said if you want a job to go and see him at the club on Friday afternoon, he'll be there overseeing some deliveries."

"He knows you're students right?" Teyla asked him in a concerned tone. "He understands you have studies and classes to attend, you can't be up all night working in a club."

"He knows," Ronon assured her. "I'll only be working Tuesday and Friday nights, plus alternating Saturdays."

"I found it," Elizabeth said seeming to appear from nowhere and dropping several large books on the table with a thud that obviously made Teyla jump. "There's bit's of information in all of these but this one has the most," she added as she picked up the book from the top of the pile.

"We can finish this essay now then," Teyla replied as she grabbed one of the books.

* * *

><p>It was strange that she had been so nervous the last time they had gone out to dinner but this time she was hardly nervous at all. She'd be lying if she said she was completely calm about it but the last time she had been so nervous she'd felt sick, this time she was just... anxious. The knock at the door was probably John and she went to answer it, glad that Teyla wasn't here to give her fashion advice this time.<p>

"Hey, are you ready?" John questioned as she opened the door to find him stood there in his dark coloured jeans and smart black shirt, his hair as messy as always. It was really unfair how casually he could dress for their dates when she had to wear dresses she was fairly certain he'd never seen her in before and had to spend forever doing her hair and make up, twice as long when Teyla was there.

"Yes," she told him with a smile walking back into the room to pick up jacket. It might still be warm and sunny during the days but the nights were starting to drop cold now and she knew by the time they were heading back to the school later the little red dress she was wearing would not be enough to keep her warm.

"You look good," he told her and she smiled and nodded, avoiding his gaze as she tried to remember where she had put her purse. She quickly spotted it on the dresser and picked it up, going through a quick mental check list to be sure she hadn't fogotten anything.

"No Teyla?" John questioned and Elizabeth shook her head.

"She's gone to see Ronon," she told him and then headed for the door, locking it once they were both out of the room. They spent the walk to the restaurant talking unlike the last time when it had been filled with awkawrd silence and uncomfortable glances. They ordered their meals when they arrived at the resturant and for a few minutes they fell into an uncomfortable silence but quickly filled it with a conversation.

"I think she's starting to get used to it now," Elizabeth told him when John asked how her visit to Carlie's room had gone earlier that day. "She's managed to surround herself with all the same kinds of people she does back home. She has people to hang on her every word and people to run around doing stuff for her."

"So she hasn't adjusted to her environment, she's adjusted her environment to her," John said.

Elizabeth nodded. "Almost impressive really."

"It's really strange how different the two of you are, especially when you're so close in age, you're nothing alike at all, I would never guess you were even related," John told her as their food arrived and they both thanked the waiter.

"She's like our father, I'm like our mother," Elizabeth stated and John looked up from his plate to her. She realised then that she had never really mentioned her mother before, not to anyone at the school. "Before you ask, she died when I was eleven."

"I'm sorry," John said and she knew this was going to tun into a really unhappy conversation if she didn't cut it off quickly.

"She'd been sick for a long time, and it was a long time ago," she replied and he obviously sensed that she didn't want to talk about it because he carried on eating and changed the subject.

"Your food looks nicer than mine," he stated and she smiled without looking up from her plate, grateful. She pushed her plate towards him so he could try hers, deciding that she did indeed have the better and meal and then complaining that he should have ordered that instead. The rest of thier date went by quickly and it didn't seem like long before they were walking back onto campus just in time for curfew.

"That was much less awkard than our previous date," John laughed as they came to a stop near the girls dorms.

"It was," Elizabeth agreed, it was like they'd finaly fallen back into the almost comfortable rhythm they'd started to develop before the summer holidays had begun and they'd been seperated for weeks. "It was good though."

It seemed then that John had spoken too soon as a moment of awkwardness descended on them as they both internally tried to decide how to end the night. Teyla was going to laugh so much when she told her about this. She made the decision for them both then, he'd made all the moves so far, he'd been the one to keep taking all the risks and he deserved the same back from her. She stepped forward and kissed him. She could tell he was as surprised as she was by the move but his hands settled on her hips as he kissed her back.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she told him as she stepped back and then headed for the dorms.

* * *

><p>She was quickly getting used to being away from home, she was accustomed to the large house the governing family lived in and now she had only her bedroom. She was used to having people to do things for her, an entire staff to take care of everything she needed and wanted. It had taken some doing but she'd managed to adapt, she was certain her father would be proud. This school could build up connections for her, she could gain friends who would one day be in high places, who had family in high places, it would serve her well later in life. Her father hadn't said anything yet but he'd implied to her several times that he was considering naming her as the next governor instead of Elizabeth. It was a break from tradition and he'd have to go through several people to make it happen but that wouldn't be an issue.<p>

She arrived at the cafeteria, the food here wasn't as good as it was at home, she missed the meals that were prepared for her there. She didn't really like eating in this crowded room either, it was full of people knocking into each other as they ran around, full of noise and people goofing off on their breaks from lessons. It was bearable though and she had little choice but to deal with it.

"Carlie," she heard Sasha greet her and saw her freind sitting at a nearby table. She smiled and nodded to acknowledge that she'd seen her and made her way over there. She heard Elizabeth's voice and turned to find out where she was. She was at a table not far from where Sasha was sitting, she was with some of her 'friends' and it looked like they were laughing at one of the other people in the group. She sighed, when would Elizabeth learn? These people were not her friends, they were using her, she'd never had that many friends growing up, what made her think it was different here, everyone wanted something, these people were no different.

"Hello Sasha," she greeted as she reached the table. She realised then that the people around the table, Sasha included, were giving her a strange look, like they knew something and were trying to decide who should be the unfortunate one to tell her. "What is it?"

"We heard a rumour today," Sasha told her cautiously. They'd only been here a few weeks but they already knew not to get on her bad side. "But it's probably just that, just a rumour."

"For goodness sake Sasha, just tell me," Carlie demanded as she took a seat at the table.

"Well, it was about your sister, Elizabeth," Sasha continued and Carlie found herself sighing, what had Elizabeth done? "We heard someone talking about that drug that went into circulation last year, I'm sure you know they've had problems with it here."

"Everyone knows that, what does this have to do with Elizabeth?" Carlie questioned.

"Well the rumour is that she was taking the drug, that her and a couple of her friends were taking it and then when they got caught they claimed someone had been folowing them around spiking their food and drinks with it for months," Sasha finally explained and Carlie froze, she was certain if she could see her face she would have paled.

"Elizabeth took drugs?" Carlie questioned, it didn't seem plausible. Elizabeth might be difficult and stubborn and she caused no end of headaches for their father but she wasn't the type to take drugs. She supposed there was a lot about her sister she didn't know, a lot that had changed about her since coming here, she would never have expected her sister to be going out clubbing late into the night in short revealing dresses either but she apparently did that. Still, there was a world of difference between going out at night drinking and taking illegal drugs. She would have to look into the matter further, if Elizabeth was doing anything to affect their family reputation then she needed to find out.

"That's what we heard, but like we said, I'm sure it's just a rumour, probably not true," Sasha stated and Carlie could tell from her face, from all the faces around the table that they didn't really believe that. It seemed Elizabeth was already affecting her reputation whether she'd been doing drugs or not.

"I doubt it's true," Carlie stated and Sasha gave her a quick smile and changed the conversation. Carlie looked over at Elizabeth. She'd always been a trouble maker, could never simply do as she was told, maybe this 'rebellion' or whatever it was she was doing was just the logical next step. It didn't matter, Carlie wasn't going to stand for it, she would make sure her older sister did not affect her time here at Pegasus, or her time after that.

* * *

><p>The notes on his paper had gotten messier and messier as the lesson had progressed. They'd started out neat and he'd even used a colored pen to highlight some important bits. Then he'd missed some information and started writing quickly to try and catch up and it had all gone down hill from there. The last couple of lines were almost illegible, he had to bring his face to within a few inches of it and squint to be able to figure out what he'd written.<p>

"You'll be breaking up into groups of three or four for this project," Professor Colbrun stated as he continued to tell them about their Magical Ethics assignment. "This project will be worth fourty precent of your final grade for the year so don't take it lightly and don't think you can get away with slacking off and letting the rest of your group do the work. I'll be monitoring each group closely and at the end of the assignment you'll all be asked to fill out a report of what each member of the group did."

"Well, that's that plan ruined," John whispered and both Elizabeth and Teyla rolled their eyes while Jack smirked.

"You can choose your own groups if you wish, anyone who wants to be put into a group come to me at the front, everyone esle you've got two minutes to get into groups, three or four people to a group, no more, no less," Colbrun instructed them. The class erupted in noise as people began moving around and discussing with friends which group they wanted to work in.

"Are we a four?" Jack questioned. "Unless somone has an objection to us working together."

"It's fine with me," Teyla said and Elizabeth nodded her agreement.

"Well that was easy," John said as he rewrote the last few lines of his notes so that he could read them without straining his eyes.

"Alright," Colbrun called over the nosie two minutes later. "Each group is going to be given a list of problems, magical issues that society faces. Your assignment is to research these issues and potential solutions to them and prepare a presentation on your findings. You have plenty of time to do the work, you won't be making the presentations until after the christmas break."

"Who are we doing the presetnations in front of?" one of the guys near the front of the class questioned as Colbrun picked up a stack of papers from his desk and began handing them out.

"You'll be doing them in front of the class and several people who I will be asking to sit in on them with me. These assignment briefs I'm giving to you now explain in more detail what you need to do as well as giving you the list of problems you must work on," Colbrun informed them. "The point of this assignment is not just to get a grade. It gives you the opportunity to devlop your skills in working with others, in researching information and standing in front of both peers and strangers to deliver information."

John accepted the assignment brief on behalf of his group and quickly skimmed over the first page. It sounded like it was going to be a lot of work but that wouldn't be a problem in this group and they had Elizabeth on their team, this was easily her best subject. He handed the paper to her and she held it where Teyla could see it, the two of them taking more time to go over it in more detail than he had.

"I'm going to finish the class there for the day but I suggest ou take this opportunity to speak to the other members of your group and decide when and how you will work on your assignments. You may have plenty of time but I assure you it will fly by. I'm at your disposal if you should require any help at any point," Colbrun finished the class and then went to sit behind his desk, shuffling through some paper work as the class once again erupted in noise and most students headed straight out the door.

"We can make a start on this over the weekend if you want," Jack stated. Elizabeth and Teyla hummed their agreement as they read through the papers.

"So we can go then?" John said but got no response. "So we can go then?" he tried again a little louder.

"Yes," Teyla said as she started to put her things away. Elizabeth handed the assignment breif to Jack who had already put his things away.

"This sounds complicated," Jack stated.

* * *

><p>Kolya was beyond bored at the school, his skills were far beyond this, his father had taught him some of the basics as soon as he'd presented magical ability. It was ridiculous that he was now expected to sit through classes that taught him those things again. He would admit that he'd definitely learned more since coming here, that there were still some things he needed to work on but he was definitely above the level of the rest of the students in his year.<p>

He wasn't learning anything he was interested in either, not that he'd expected the school to teach him those things. He'd been learning about them himself since he'd first come here last year but he had to be careful and that meant he sometimes let opprotunities slip by. He had wondered, at first, if his interest in dark magic was a bad thing, everyone else seemed to think it was. It was who he was though, dark magic was a part of his family history, his father used it, quietly of course but he used it all the same.

That was why he was standing here in this mimly lit pub, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the stale smell in the air. He was almost used to it now, he'd been coming here since he'd first started at the school, it hadn't taken him long to find this place. He'd met several useful contacts here, the kind of people that were selling black market ingredients. He had been buying whatever he knew his father was running low on, sending them back home, brownie points with his parents could only ever work in his favour.

"Are you sure you really want to be messing around with that?" Laden questioned. "It sounds really dangerous."

"Of course it sounds dangerous," Kolya snapped, sometimes Laden's lack of a spine got really annoying. He put the small vial that he'd just purchased into his pocket, "I know what I'm doing, I've been buying stuff and sending it back home for over a year and it's not like I wasn't around this stuff before I came here."

"Is that the guy?" Sora questioned from her seat next to him and he looked toward the door to see the man he had really come here to see. Jared had been his most useful contact over the past year, there didn't seem to be anything the man couldn't get his hands on, for a price. He'd even had a few things for sale that Kolya had never heard of but a bit of research later had told him they were valuable and rare ingredients, his father had been pleased. Jared took a seat opposite him and handed him a small brown package.

"Everything is in there?" Kolya questioned.

"Everything you asked for," Jared replied and Kolya smiled and handed over the payment.

"A pleasure doing business with you, as always," Kolya stated as he stood up and took the package.

"I have one more thing you might be interested in," Jared told him, Kolya sat back down.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Author Note: Short chapter here just to get something posted, I've already started work on the next chapter so hopefully the wait shouldn't be as long. Thanks to Suzotchka1 belanna30, Kaylee and Kuroima for the reviews on the last chapter!**

Chapter 6

Elizabeth was just locking the door to her room when she heard Carlie's voice behind her. She turned around in surprise, she hadn't expected that Carlie would ever venture into the regular student dorms. One look at her face though told her that her sister was a girl on a mission, she looked angry and determined, a combination she usually had when she wasn't getting her own way.

"Carlie," Elizabeth greeted.

"We need to talk," Carlie told her.

"I'm just on my way out so you'll have to talk and walk," Elizabeth told her.

"No, in private and right now," Carlie stated and Elizabeth raised an eyebrow but she could tell her sister wasn't going to let this go until she got what she wanted to she sighed and unlocked her door again.

"Is it true?" Carlie whirled around on her as soon they were both shut into the privacy of her room.

"Is what true?" Elizabeth questioned wondering if she'd blacked out and missed part of the conversation somewhere.

"Don't play dumb with me Elizabeth," Carlie demanded, "you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"I really don't," Elizabeth shook her head in confusion.

"The drugs Elizabeth," Carlie stated. "I've heard the rumours going around, you and your friends took that Allinyas drug and when you got caught you tried to blame someone else."

Elizabeth could physically feel the colour drain out of her face; she had hoped to keep that part of her magic school experience from her family. It hadn't even come up over the summer, they weren't interested in knowing about her year and she didn't feel any need to tell them about it. She knew the rumours were still circulating, thought not to the extent they had the year before, it was just a few whispers here and there. She should have known that sooner or later Carlie would hear about it, she should have been prepared for this. She just wanted to forget about it though, at least as much as she could.

"I was drugged Carlie," Elizabeth told her. "Someone who was pretending to be my friend spiked my drinks so that I'd get addicted and seek out a way to buy the drugs myself."

"Really Elizabeth?" Carlie's tone was patronising, her tone disbelieving and Elizabeth found herself getting angry. She'd been through all of this once, she didn't need it again now.

"Yes Carlie, really," she raised her voice a little. "The person who did it is in jail awaiting trial, me and my friends weren't the only ones he did it to. If you need proof why don't you go and talk to the police."

"Well then why did you keep it a secret?" Carlie questioned, trying to retain the high ground in the conversation.

"Because I didn't need this, from you or from our father," Elizabeth replied and then walked towards the door. "If you don't mind, I have places to be."

Carlie looked taken aback; it was rare that Elizabeth talked to her that way. She would usually just nod and go along with whatever she wanted, it was the easiest thing to do, constantly battling with her wasn't worth it, not when their father always came down on Carlie's side. She could see her sister wanted to protest, wanted to push the matter further but Elizabeth was in no mood to deal with it.

"I'm serious Carlie, you're going to make me late," Elizabeth stated before her sister could verbalise any of her protests and Carlie reluctantly left the room. Elizabeth waited a minute before she left as well, not wanting to catch up to her sister on the way out. She headed straight for the cafeteria, knowing she wouldn't have time to eat before classes now.

"Are you alright?" John questioned as she sat in the seat beside him.

She took a breath to calm herself, pushing the incident to the back of her mind, before answering. "I'm fine, just Carlie stuff."

John gave her a concerned look but let the matter drop and pushed the remainder of his breakfast towards her. She picked up a slice of bacon gratefully, it wasn't much but it would be enough to get her through until her free period.

* * *

><p>Jack picked up the pile of clothes that had been left on his bed by housekeeping, his laundry done for him as always. He put it away before emptying his books out of his bag and replacing them with the ones he needed for the afternoon. He went back to the cafeteria, making a mental note of where his friends were sitting as he headed straight for the cafeteria queue. He got his dinner and headed back to the table, sitting in the empty chair next to Sam and trading smiles with her. They still hadn't found their balance with each other yet, there were still a lot of awkward smiles and quick glances.<p>

"No cake?" Sam questioned.

"Sadly no," Jack told her. "Just as well really, I'm watching my figure."

Jack gave himself a mental pat on the back as Sam laughed. "The cheese burgers really give that away."

"I said I was watching my figure, I didn't say what I was going to watch it do," Jack told her with a shrug as he took a bite out of his burger. Sam rolled her eyes and turned to Vala who was asking her a question. Rodney dropped into the chair opposite him with a heavy sigh, Radek sitting next to him looking frustrated.

"You guys alright?" Jack questioned and Rodney looked up from the table to glare at him.

"Don't mind him," Sam said quickly. "He's just upset because his potion blew up."

"It wasn't my fault; my partner clearly didn't know what he was doing," Rodney told them.

"He wasn't the one measuring out the ingredients," Radek pointed out only for Rodney to turn his glare on him instead. "That's getting old Rodney."

"Look Rodney, you had a bad class, happens to the best of us," Sam said with a shrug. "Now get over it and stop sulking."

Rodney made no effort to stop sulking and Jack decided it would be best just to leave him to it until he decided he wanted to get involved with the group again.

"Hey guys," Cameron said as he took a seat at the table. "I just ran into Kieran, he's taking over running the Atala guild this year. He says they've selected most of the first years they're going to approach, they should start handing out the approach notes sometime next week."

"That was quick," Sam replied. "It's exciting though, new people coming in. It's weird though, last year we were the ones getting the notes and this year we're just sitting around waiting to hear about them."

"Hopefully it won't be long before the meetings start up again, I've kinda missed them," Jack said as he took another bite of his burger.

"You won't be saying that when we've got school work piling up, exams to study for and the guild competition to prepare for, the end of last year was manic, we had no time," Sam pointed out and Jack shrugged conceding the point, they were all run pretty ragged at the end of last year.

* * *

><p>They had been working on their magical ethics assignment for over two hours. Elizabeth and Teyla had gone straight up the stairs to look for books when they'd arrived in the library and hadn't come back down for nearly fifteen minutes carrying at least their body weight in books. They were taking the assignment very seriously, not that Jack and John weren't, they were just a little bit more laid back out the whole thing. Elizabeth had reminded them that it was forty percent of their final grade and both men had put their working heads on then.<p>

"Here it is," Teyla pointed to a paragraph in the middle of the very thick book with tiny writing she'd been reading through. They'd been given several magical social issues to work on for their assignment and after comparing with their friends they realised not all groups had the same ones. Their seemed to be four different sets of issues around, some much harder than others.

"What is it?" Jack questioned, trying to look across from the opposite side of the table.

"This case I was looking for, a man who was turned down for proper magical training and found a way around the system. He got trained by a group who were training people that hadn't gotten into the schools for money, they were doing it for years, made a fortune before they were caught," Teyla explained. "Anyway, because he wasn't trained properly and because there are reasons people get rejected from magic schools, he lost control of his magic, it drove him insane, he killed four people."

"All because he wasn't trained by a school?" John questioned.

"The school has ways of teaching us, subtle things, and they do it slowly. They do it that way for a reason. This man got a crash course, in less than a year he learned what takes us at least the first three years of magic school to learn. His mind and body couldn't handle it and that was the result," Teyla continued to explain. "It didn't help that the reason he was rejected from magic schools was because of mental and physical weaknesses."

"So that's why we have to go through a medical exam to get in here," John said.

"Didn't you read your conditional acceptance letter?" Elizabeth questioned, finally sticking her head up from the book she'd been reading for the last twenty minutes and showing that she had in fact been listening the entire time. John was impressed by the ability of some people to multi-task. "It was all explained in there."

"I skimmed it," John said.

"That explains a lot," Elizabeth said and John glared at her for a moment.

"Alright, so I think we should use this case to lead into the section on people using unofficial means to learn magic," Teyla suggested.

John nodded and then sighed. "Why did we have to get that issue, it's got to be the most difficult one to deal with it?"

"No one said this was going to be easy," Elizabeth stated.

"No one said it was going to be this hard either," John replied.

"Yes they did," Elizabeth said. "Oh wait, that was in the acceptance letter too, never mind."

John glared at her again. "Are you just out to get me today?"

"Not at all," Elizabeth smiled and went back to her book. John continued to glare at her for a few more seconds until she turned the page and looked up at the group triumphantly. "Finally, I found it."

"Found what?" John questioned.

"After the case that Teyla was talking about there was a crack down on unofficial magical training, mostly in Alteran City but there were massive efforts all across Atlantis to deal with the issue," Elizabeth told them, clearly pleased with her find. "They tried a number of different things, from increased law enforcement and harsher penalties to better public education on the matter. Some things were successful, others weren't but I figured since are assignment is to find potential solutions to the problems, a good place to start would be things that had already been tried."

"Let's take a look," Jack said and Elizabeth moved the book so everyone at the table could see it.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**Authors Note: It's been an inexcusably long time since I updated this and all I can do is blame University for it. I'm working on the next chapter but I have my dissertation due in a couple of months so it may be a little while before the next update, I'll endeavor to keep the wait as short as possible. Thanks to those who have stuck with me, several of you have messaged me about this story and it's heart warming to know that people care enough to take the time to do that. I'm really sorry about the wait, I hope it was worth it.**

* * *

><p>Chapter 7<p>

It was a warm night and the good weather seemed to have brought people out even though it was a Tuesday. Ronon and Teal'c guarded the doors to the town's new nightclub, Fever. The grand opening had been on Saturday, Ronon and Teal'c hadn't been working that night so this was their first shift. They'd both been a little nervous but half an hour of training and an hour of on the job experience and they were getting the hang of it pretty quickly.

They checked the ID's of a group of young girls going in; they were all eighteen so Ronon allowed them to pass into the club. They'd only caught one underage person trying to get in with an ID that obviously hadn't been his own.

"This is not so bad," Teal'c stated as he checked the ID's of the couple who were next in line.

"A little repetitive though," Ronon said as the couple walked by him.

"But it will give us both some extra money this year," Teal'c pointed out. "You can spend it on Teyla."

Ronon turned a mild glare on him but couldn't really comment because he knew he probably would spend at least some of it on Teyla. He couldn't believe they'd been together almost a year now; it didn't seem like that long ago that Teyla had called to him across the table in the cafeteria, asking him on a date to prove a point to Elizabeth. He hadn't been sure they would last to begin with, they were both so different but he couldn't imagine not being with her now.

"I'm sorry, we cannot allow you in," Teal's was saying and Ronon shook of his reverie and looked at Teal'c. He had stepped in front of a man who was trying to get into the club; he looked over 18 but not by more than a few years. He was swaying from side to side though as he stood there, occasionally shifting his feet to keep from falling over. The woman at his side was no better; she seemed to be holding onto him for balance herself.

"And why not?" she questioned, her words slurred together.

"You are intoxicated, I believe you have had enough to drink," Teal'c told them.

"That's not up to you," the man said looking Teal'c over and in his drunken state he seemed to find the odds in his own favour. "Lemme passed," he slurred and attempted to brush passed Teal'c. "I cannot."

"Is there a problem?" Ronon intervened to show the couple that Teal'c wasn't working alone.

"Yeah, this guy won't let me in," the man gestured at Teal'c with annoyance.

"I'm sorry sir but we're required by law not to let anyone who we believe to be too intoxicated into the club," Ronon tried to be diplomatic. This was the first time they'd had to decline anyone entry based on how drunk they already were but the night was still young and they had expected not to have to deal with this until later.

"And what makes you qualified to say I'm too intoxicated?" the man questioned, his words becoming more slurred and Ronon had to strain to understand them.

"It is left to our discretion," Teal'c stated, his voice full of authority. "Now we're going to have to ask you to leave sir, there are others waiting in the queue behind you."

"Well screw you," the man shouted loudly. "We don't need your stinking club, we'll go take our business somewhere else, we won't be coming here again."

"Let's hope not," Ronon mumbled under his voice after the man had stumbled away from the front of the club. They turned their attention of the group of young men who had been waiting behind them in the queue, checking ID's, stamping their hands with a red ink stamp and allowing them to pass.

* * *

><p>"Why was Blue Tears extract banned from use in potions?" Elizabeth asked as she looked up from the book resting on her knees to John. They were sitting in his room studying for their potions test the following week. They'd been studying for over an hour, they'd started by sitting at his desk and had since migrated to the floor. Elizabeth was sitting with her back to the bed, John opposite her leaning against the wall. He looked at her with a blank expression and when she opened her mouth to try and help he quickly cut her off.<p>

"No, no, don't tell me, don't tell me," he said quickly raising a hand as though it would somehow stop her words from getting to him. "I know this one, it'll come to me."

She waited patiently, he looked like he was about to say something but then changed his mind. "The long term effects..." she encouraged.

"It made people crazy," John finally said annoyed at not getting the answer sooner. "We're only a few weeks into the term; you would think Trel would save the tests until a little later."

"I suppose being tested regularly means we have no choice but to study as we go rather than trying to cram it all in right before the exam," Elizabeth shrugged as she looked back down at her notes to find another question to ask.

"I think my brain has been turned into mush," John said and she looked back up to see him swaying his head from side to side with a look of consideration before announcing that his brain was in fact mush.

"Why don't we take a break," Elizabeth suggested and closed her book, putting it on the floor beside her. John perked up at the thought and stood up, stretching as he did so and then reaching down a hand to help her up as well. She realised her butt had gone numb while she had been sitting and she moved over to John's window to try and walk it off a little. She looked over the campus; John's room was on the scenic side of the tower, the one that looked out over the forest rather than the other school buildings. He had a pretty good view from his window; it was probably the only thing about living in the towers that she envied. She happily went without her laundry being done, without the bigger rooms and bathrooms, the extra wardrobe space. She didn't need any of those things; she wouldn't have minded having the view though.

John moved to stand next to her. "The view is probably wasted on me now, I'm used to it."

Elizabeth smiled but she could tell he was lying; he appreciated the view as much now as he had when he first saw it. "You could always try and move rooms, ask for a view of the campus."

"You know, some of the rooms look out towards the girl's dorms," he said with a mischievous note to his voice. "That might be worth acting like a spoiled rich kid to get."

She elbowed him in the side and he feigned a look of hurt. "You deserved it."

"I did, you're right," he replied and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She was getting used to this now, the random displays of affection that she could never predict from him. It still baffled her at times, that she had this, had him, and the rest of her life at school, it was all so different than anything she'd had before. At times she was afraid she was going to wake up in her bed in Tralos and this would all have been a dream.

It wasn't a dream though, it was real, John was real and currently looking at her lips with a looks she was becoming accustomed to seeing. He kissed her, his lips meeting hers softly and she was drawn in as she had been every time since the first. She ran her hands through his hair, his hands sliding down to her hips and pulling her closer. She knew where this was leading, wasn't sure how far she wanted it to get down that path yet and so she broke the kiss.

"We really should study," she said and John narrowed his eyes.

"You couldn't distract me with anything else, food, friends, a library book you forgot to return?" he questioned. "No, it had to be the potions test."

She smiled and stepped away, moving back over to where her books and papers were and sitting down next to them again. "Come on, we'll just do another half an hour and then I'll distract you with food."

* * *

><p>Rodney shifted the weight of the bag on his shoulder as his muscles protested against the weight he was carrying. He would have thought he'd be used to carrying around so many heavy books after his first year but that was apparently not the case. He walked toward the cafeteria, spotting his sister waiting for him by the doors. She was the complete opposite of him, both in looks and in personality. She was all blonde hair and blue eyes, she got along with everyone and didn't have an ounce of arrogance in her despite being almost as smart as he was.<p>

"Meredith," Jeannie smiled as he approached.

"I told you not to call me that here," he glared at her in response.

"It's your name," she pointed out, grinning.

"Just..." he sighed and took one of the books out of his bag. It was a book he had used in first year that she had somehow managed not to pack her own copy of when they'd come to school. "Here, take this."

"Thank you," she took the book from him and hugged him hard. "You're the best, I can't believe I left mine at home, I'll get it back to you in one piece at Christmas I promise."

"Rodney," a voice from behind him said and a moment later, Laura and Carson stepped into view. "You heading in for lunch?"

"It's lunchtime isn't it?" he questioned.

"Don't be rude," Jeannie admonished him and then turned to Laura and Carson. "I'm Jeannie McKay."

Laura took her outstretched hand and shook it. "I'm Laura, this is Carson."

"It's nice to meet you," Jeannie said and then looked at her brother once more. "Thanks again for the book Meredith, I'll see you later," she told him and with a quick kiss on his cheek she walked away.

Rodney looked at his two friends, Carson was clearly trying not to smile but Laura was openly grinning at him, at least she was holding back the laugh, for the moment. "Shut up," he said to her.

"I didn't say anything," she replied, amusement in her tone.

"I can hear you thinking it," he replied and she held back another laugh as he threw up his hands in resignation and walked through the cafeteria door.

"She seemed nice," Laura said as they found an empty table. "She obviously adores you."

Rodney wasn't sure how to respond to that so he chose to say nothing, instead he looked around the cafeteria at the students who were already eating to determine what was on the menu for today.

"See anything you like Meredith?" Laura questioned and he turned his head to glare at her. She was sitting at the table, her chin resting on her hands and her eyelashes fluttering innocently.

"You just can't resist can you?" he muttered in annoyance.

"No," Laura shook her head with a smile. "I tried but I really don't have that kind of self restraint."

* * *

><p>Elizabeth finished brushing her hair and set the brush down on the dresser as Teyla walked toward her with two letters in hand. She handed one of them to Elizabeth on the way to her bed and Elizabeth looked down at the envelope in her hand, she recognised her father's handwriting instantly. She felt her stomach drop, she had a feeling she knew what this was about, she'd been expecting it for over a week.<p>

She opened the envelope and took out the folded paper inside, unfolding it to read her father's words and with a sigh she put the paper on the dresser. She could feel eyes burning into the back of her head and turned around to see Teyla looking at her curiously.

"My father," she told her and Teyla nodded her head in understanding. After meeting her father and sister during parent's week last year Teyla had taken an instant dislike to them both, Elizabeth couldn't really blame her for it but they were still her family.

"He had bad news?" Teyla questioned knowing how little Elizabeth got letters from home.

"Something like that," Elizabeth told her and then sighed again. "Carlie found out about the Allinyas thing last year, she heard the rumour that Jack, Laura and I took the drugs willingly and blamed Cal when we got caught."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Teyla asked in disbelief.

"There was nothing to say about it, I told her that Cal had spiked our food and drinks to try and get us addicted to the drugs," Elizabeth told her. "I don't think she believed me."

"And now she's written home and told your father," Teyla shook her head. "How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad," Elizabeth replied. "He's angry about the situation, questioned my version of the truth, told me not to ruin our families reputation and that I should have told him immediately about the situation."

"Because he's so approachable," Teyla muttered. "I'm sorry Elizabeth, I know he's your father but he should treat you better. I hate seeing the way he treats you, it makes me so mad."

"It's fine Teyla, I understand," Elizabeth said. "I suppose I'd better tell him I'm testifying at Cal's trial in a couple of weeks."

"Are you nervous?" Teyla asked.

"About testifying?" Elizabeth questioned and Teyla nodded. "I'm trying not to think about it too much. We've got that meeting next week to go through our testimony, I'm not really looking forward to any of it."

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Teyla said and then grabbed her jacket from the bed. "Let's go and get breakfast."

* * *

><p>Janet walked into her room to find Laura hanging off the side of the bed as she tried to reach a book on the floor. Only her knees and the lower parts of her legs were still on the bed, one hand was balancing her on the floor and the other stretching as far as it would go, her fingertips touching the book but not enough to grab hold of it or pull it closer.<p>

"Wouldn't it be easier to just get up and get it?" Janet questioned as she watched the spectacle.

"You would think so," Laura replied, her voice strained. She almost lost her balance but quickly righted herself again and reached for the book once more. "But in my mind this was the easier option, I'm not entirely sure why I'm still doing it, pride maybe?"

Janet walked over and nudged the book closer with her foot so that it was within Laura's reach. Her roommate grabbed the book and then proceeded with the spectacle of getting back onto her bed without getting up to do it.

"I did it," Laura announced as though she'd had no help whatsoever.

"Well done," Janet replied with a shake of her head and then held up the piece of paper that had been stuck to their door. "Atala guild meeting," she announced. "First one of the year is on Friday next week."

"Think we'll all get the same events as last year?" Laura questioned and Janet shrugged.

"More or less, we won last year and as first years we did pretty well overall so I doubt they'll make too many changes, it'll just be a case of where the new first years fit," she replied.

"At least that gives me something to look forward to next week," Laura said as she flicked through the pages of her hard earned book. "I have that meeting for the trial on Wednesday."

It was said so casually that had Janet not known her better she would have thought Laura was completely unconcerned by it. She did know her better though, she knew how much what Cal had done had affected her last year. Laura was a tough girl and Cal had made her feel vulnerable, made her feel weak and it had more than just knocked Laura's confidence. There had been a time last year that Laura hadn't been herself, it had been like sharing a room with a different person. An experience like that left its mark on a person and it had definitely left one on Laura, even if her roommate hid it well.

"Jack and Elizabeth are going to be there too right?" Janet asked and Laura nodded absently.

"Yeah and the other kid that came forward about being spiked, they're going to talk to us about the trial and the procedure and then I think they're going through each of our testimonies separately," Laura told her as she continued to flick through the pages of her book but Janet could tell she was no longer seeing what was on them. "Wouldn't want us contaminating each other's testimonies."

"Not nervous then?" Janet asked knowing what her answer would be and knowing it would be a lie.

"Not really."

"That's good then."

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

**Authors Note: I've been gone a long time and I don't know if anyone is still following this story but I've had a few messages requesting that I continue this so here I am with another chapter. The next one is already written as well, I'll try to post it sometime in the next week. For anyone who is still following this story, please forgive me for my disappearance, I promise I'll finish it. **

Chapter 8

He was nervous; he could at least admit it to himself if no one else. Cal's trial was a week away and he was going to have to stand in front of a room full of people and relive the whole ordeal. He was fortunate that only a small number of people knew the full story, not even Cal knew the whole truth. Cal didn't know that his plan had been successful, that Jack had gotten addicted to the drug and had continued taking it for a few weeks after Cal's arrest. His friends had chosen to keep that part of the story to themselves, to keep Jack's record clean, a drug dependency would prevent him from ever joining the Protectorate's guild.

He knew the whole story though, it was shameful and over the last few days he'd relived it several times. He'd lied to his friends, he'd been cruel to them, had gone as far as hitting John when his secret was revealed. It wasn't a part of his life he was proud of and he hoped once the trial was over he'd be able to finally put the whole thing behind him.

There was a knock at his door and he knew immediately who it was, had learned to distinguish her knock from everyone else's. He opened the door and found Sam standing there as expected; she was dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket. He rarely saw her in a dress but he found he liked her dressed this way better, it was more her.

"Are you ready?" she asked and he nodded, grabbing his own jacket from the end of his bed as they left. "Where do you want to eat?"

"Anywhere you like," Jack told her, putting an arm around her back as they walked across the campus toward the gate.

"How about the same place we ate last time, the food was really good there?" she asked.

"Then that's where we'll go," he replied. "Did you manage to get your history assignment finished?"

"Yes, finally, I've never had so much trouble with a piece of work ever," she told him and he could hear the frustration in her tone. "Daniel helped me with it, history has always been his favourite subject."

"Since I've seen you help him out with his potions work several times I guess it all evens out in the end," he stated and she shrugged.

"So, how nervous are you, on a scale of 1 to 10?" she asked as they left the school grounds and began their walk along the road into town. He looked at her confused for a moment before he realised what she was talking about. He was about to tell her he wasn't nervous but she gave him a look that told him not to bother.

"Sometimes I think you can read my mind," he said instead and then sighed. "I'm nervous, I've never testified in court before, I think we're all a little nervous."

"Are you going to be okay, it's got to be bringing up some... unpleasant memories for you?" Sam questioned with a meaningful expression.

"I think it's brining up unpleasant memories for everyone," he told her. "I'll be fine and if you're worried I'm going to go running off to find some Allinyas to cope then you don't need to. I learned my lesson about that the hard way, I'm not going to make that mistake again."

She smiled. "I wasn't worried about that."

"Well, good, because you don't need to be."

* * *

><p>Laura had never been in a court room before but it looked much like she had imagined it would. There was a line of chairs for the five judges, five people elected by the community to sit through trials and pass judgements, guilty or not guilty, and to decide the punishments. In front of these, facing the judges were two desks, one for the accusers and one for the defenders. There was another chair to the side, for witnesses to sit and give their testimony, where the judges could see them speak and the defendant could face his accuser, literally, the offenders chair was opposite the witness stand. Behind the accusers and defenders desks was a wooden barrier and then more chairs, rows of them where people could sit and watch, people from the community who had an interest in the result.<p>

"The four of you will wait in the witness waiting room, as you're called to testify you will be brought in and you will sit here," the court aide gestured to the chair at the side. He was an older man, dark hair turning grey and wrinkles beginning to appear beside his eyes. "First the accusers, the speaker for the police will question you and then when they're done the defenders will have their turn at asking you questions. They will try to pick apart your stories and they won't be kind about it."

"Who will be speaking for the defenders?" Jack asked.

"Someone appointed by the court, it is believed everyone has the right to defend themselves from any accusation and to have someone who is experienced in trials to stand for them," the aide told them.

"Sounds like a despicable job to me," Jack stated and Laura could tell he was thinking the same thing that she was, how could anyone defend someone like Cal, after everything he'd done?

"But a necessary one," the aide replied. "Once the accusers and the defenders have finished asking you questions, you may or may not be asked more questions by the judges if they feel there is anything more they need to know. When they're satisfied they will tell you that you're free to go."

"And then we can just leave?" Laura asked.

"You can leave if you wish, or you may take a seat and watch the remainder of the trial," the aide explained. "Trials can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks, some have even been known to take a couple of months, from the files, this one is likely to take a couple of days. All three of you are due to speak on the first day, you will need to be in the building ready to be called upon from the moment the trial begins, it would be better if you were here around half an hour before it starts."

"It all sounds simple enough," Laura stated with another look around the room.

"The speaker for the accusers is waiting in an office down the hall, she will meet with each of you separately now to run through your testimony. If you feel at any time that you are being influenced by the police there is a guard outside the room who will remove you from the environment immediately," the aide told them as they were led out of the court room and down the long hallway. "Mr O'Neill, you are first," he told them as they came to a stop next to a closed door. "Just knock and enter, you're expected. The rest of you can take a seat, you will be called shortly."

The aide left then and with a shrug Jack knocked and disappeared into the office, the door closing behind him. Laura watched a woman in a suit walk quickly passed them, determination on her face and a large pile of papers in her arms.

"Wonder if she's working on another case," Laura said.

"Probably," Elizabeth replied. "There's a big trial being held at the moment, that woman who killed her neighbour, the trial is expected to finish this week, that's why Cal's is scheduled for next week."

"Working as a judge must be awfully depressing," Laura muttered.

* * *

><p>The warm weather was quickly on its way out. Another week or two and they'd all be bundling themselves into coats every day, as it was they could still get away with a decent jacket. They'd all gathered at the river, enjoying the little bit of sunshine nature was still granting them and waiting for Jack, Elizabeth and Laura to get back from their visit to court. They'd all been nervous when they'd left the school just after lunch, it was going to be worse when they actually had to go and testify next week.<p>

"I think that's wrong," Kate said looking over Rodney's shoulder at the work he was doing.

"No, it's not," Rodney said quickly.

"It's wrong," Kate repeated. "Cyan crystals have calming properties; a lot of spiritual healers use them to help their patients. My father has a whole box full of them."

"Physical healers use them too," Carson supplied, "to help keep patients calm, it aids the healing process."

"Well aren't you two just know it all's," Rodney muttered under his breath as he drew a line through whatever he'd written and wrote something else.

"They're here," Teyla announced and John followed her gaze to where their friends were walking along the side of the river to join them. They all looked fine, no worse for wear, as they sat with the rest of the group. "So, how did it go?"

"It was fine," Jack said. "They gave us a tour of the court, explained how everything is going to work next week and then went through our testimonies. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The speaker for the police was nice, I don't think the defenders are going to be as gentle with us when we're actually on the stand. I'm not looking forward to the cross examination at all."

Sam laid a hand over his, "I'm sure you'll all do fine."

"They think the trial is going to take a couple of days, we're all testifying on the first day so it'll be out of the way pretty quickly. We won't be allowed in to the court room until after we've testified but afterwards we'll be allowed to sit and watch the trial. I don't know if I want to take them up on that yet. I mostly just want to put this all behind me but I also want to see that ass go down for this, I want to see his face when they deliver the guilty verdict," Laura said with bitterness in her voice towards the end, she'd suffered more because of Cal than the rest of them.

"I'll be staying for the trial," Elizabeth stated. "I definitely want to see his face when they read the guilty verdict."

"If they find him guilty," Rodney commented, several annoyed pairs of eyes swung in his direction. "What?" he questioned and rolled his eyes. "It's not like the courts have never gotten it wrong before, I'm just saying."

"Well don't," Ronon said with a shake of his head, for someone so smart, Rodney could be incredibly dim at times.

* * *

><p>Cameron hated history, he had a hard enough time paying attention in history class on a good day but discussing the finer points of a society that had lived and died in the mountains a thousand years ago was pushing his limits. He'd zoned out several times already, missed most of the notes he should have made and no longer had any idea what professor Grant was talking about.<p>

"Their customs were considered unusual by society at large, they still matched children for marriage in their infancy, divorce was forbidden and each family was expected to produce two children, no more and no less," Grant explained as he walked around the classroom and Cameron made an effort to look like he was diligently making notes.

"Why do we need to know this stuff?" Ronon whispered.

"I have no idea," Cameron replied.

"The society was self contained, they rarely ventured down from their mountain home and when they did it was to the curious, dubious and sometimes hateful stares of the rest of society," Grant continued, passing by Cameron and returning to the front of class.

"How is this ever going to be useful to me?" Cameron said quietly.

"You never know what could be useful to you in the future Mr Mitchell," Grant stated and then continued to talk about the politics within the mountain society. Had they had a name? Was he supposed to have written that down already? He glanced at Ronon's paper, couldn't see the name of the society and looked to the other side. Vala had made less notes than he had and she'd started doodling in the margins. He did however spot the name of the mountain people's society amongst the few notes she had made. The Greys, he wrote that down amongst his own notes.

"You should be paying more attention," Vala commented in a whispered voice.

"You're one to talk," Cameron replied. "You pay less attention than me."

"I've got all the important points down," Vala said as she quickly jotted down another note and then went back to her doodle. "I've been paying attention the whole time; I can multi-task, and just because I don't look like I'm paying attention, doesn't mean I'm not."

"Good," Cameron said glancing up at Grant to make sure he wasn't caught talking again. "Then I can borrow your notes later."

Vala smirked, "Maybe, I'll think about it."

"You borrow my potions notes all time," Cameron commented.

"Such as they are," Vala said with a small smile. "And that's because I'm not good at potions, not because I don't listen... most of the time."

* * *

><p>They'd all been excitedly awaiting this since the start of the semester. The first Atala Guild meeting of the new year. They entered the assembly hall where the meeting was being held and took seats where the second years had sat last year. They watched some new faces trickle into the room, the first years. They would already have had their initial meeting with the seniors but this was their first proper meeting and their first time seeing the rest of the guild. There were a few less of them than Jack had been expecting but then Atala was notoriously hard to get into. Jack felt a surge of pride at the thought.<p>

He turned back to his conversation with Tyson, a third year he'd become friends with last year. They didn't socialise much outside the guild but he was always good to talk to during meetings. "Wait until next year, they start piling on the pressure about making your senior course choices right from the first day. I don't even have to make my choices for another six months and I already feel like I should know what they are."

"I know some of what I want to do," Jack replied. "I think I do anyway, not looking forward to actually making the choices though, you're kind of stuck with whatever you decide, once it's done it's done."

"Just add to the pressure, why don't you," Tyson joked.

"Looks like everyone's here," Kieran stood in front of the hall and gestured for quiet. "I'm Kieran, the new guild leader. To those of you returning, welcome back to Atala, and to those who are just joining us, welcome to the guild. I hope you've all had an excellent start to the school year. Last year Atala won the guild competition, let's do the same again this year. The majority of you will take on the same activities you did last year, I hope you're ready to work hard again. First years, you'll be assigned to a temporary category for now but we may move you if we feel your talents would be better suited elsewhere. First years remain where you are, the rest of you know what do."

Jack, Janet and John moved together to work on their defence skills. The three of them had no choice about which of their categories to work on since they were all on sports teams for their second categories and could only train when the team arranged it. They joined the senior in charge of defensive training for the year and a few others who'd opted to work on their defence skills over whatever their other category was.

Jack was fortunate they'd already learned one of the spells needed for the second year defence competition and the senior set the three of them up working on that before going to help someone else.

"This is going to be a much bigger challenge this year," Jack commented. The spells they were defending against were much more powerful this year and so their defence had to be the same. It had to be quick and it had to be strong, otherwise they'd be going back to their dorms with a few new bruises.

John took up the offensive position and used the general offensive spell they'd been taught for these practices. It wasn't as powerful as the one they were going to be up against for the competition but they hadn't been properly taught how to use that one yet. Besides, it was better to use the low grade offensive spell that couldn't really do any damage while they got the hang of the defensive part first.

He heard John's voice a split second before the energy burst from himn and flew at Jack "Arma," Jack shouted quickly, he'd forgotten how proficient John was wit that particular offensive trick.

The expected shield didn't appear, not that he'd really been expecting it to, he hadn't gotten the hang of it in class yet either. The ball of energy hit him square in the chest hard enough to knock him backwards, his back hitting the matt.

"Jeez," Jack said as he pushed himself up. "Go a little easy on a guy."

"Sorry," John replied with a grimace. "I'll knock it down a peg."

"Or twenty," Jack said. "Janet, your turn."

Janet didn't look too sure but stepped into Jack's place and when the burst of energy headed her way, she called up the shield, and it didn't appear. She was hit by the energy and staggered backwards but she remained on her feet. By the end of the sessions, they'd all managed to call up the shield at least once but it had been weak and unstable, they were going to need some serious practice.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Authors Note: It's great to see so many people are still reading this, thank you to those who left a review. Here's the next chapter as promised, I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. **

Chapter 9

The alarm clock woke Elizabeth before the sun was so much as peaking over the horizon. She rolled over in bed and turned it off, a wave of nervousness descending over her. She took a deep breath to calm herself, she just needed to get it over with. She sat up in bed, running her fingers through her hair to put it in some semblance of order before looking across at Teyla who was awake as well.

"Guess, I'll shower first," Elizabeth said and headed for the bathroom. She showered quickly and wrapped herself in a towel. Teyla was already out of bed when she walked back into the bedroom and Elizabeth gave her a small smile. "It's never this easy to get you out of bed."

"I thought about being difficult, just for form, but you've got enough to worry about without me making you worry about being late," Teyla replied as she walked into the bathroom. "I'll be quick, I promise."

Elizabeth dried her hair and the pulled her suit out of her wardrobe. She'd bought it specifically for today, a grey suit, which according to Teyla was stylish and perfect for her. She'd barely managed to get dressed before Teyla was out of the bathroom in what had to be record time for her. They both finished getting ready and then headed down to the front doors of the building to meet with Laura, Janet and Kate.

"Hey," Laura greeted them when she saw them. "You look as nervous as I feel."

"I feel worse than I look," Elizabeth admitted as the five of them made their way to the gate that would lead them off campus and onto the road into town. They were meeting the rest of their friends there. The whole group was coming to support them, she wasn't sure how happy the court was going to be about eighteen students all showing up at once but they had every right to want to sit in the public seating and watch the trial.

The boys were already there when they arrived, along with the fifth year student Ben Dolan, the boy who had also come forward last year about being drugged and was also a witness for the accusers. Sam and Vala were only few minutes late which was impressive since Vala usually took longer to get ready than Teyla did. They left the school together, Elizabeth walked close to John, seeking the comfort she had only ever found with him, she wasn't ashamed to admit to herself she needed it at that moment.

"You'll be fine," John said as though he could sense the anxiety she was feeling. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, rubbed his hand over her arm a few times and pulled her closer.

Ahead of them Jack was walking with Sam, he was holding her hand tightly. Teyla was on his other side, offering him her silent support. Laura was flanked between Carson and Janet, the two of them were keeping her talking, offering her all the comfort they could. None of them really knew Ben very well; they'd only talked to him a few times while they'd been preparing for the trial. Cameron and Ronon were walking with him though, engaging him in conversation. It was going to be a tough day, they all knew it, but they'd get through it.

Her nerves got worse when they arrived in town. They had ten minutes before they needed to be at the court house and they stopped in a small cafe, got pastries and bottles of water to go since the cafeteria at the school had only just been opening when they left. Elizabeth didn't have much of an appetite but she nibbled on her pastry because she knew she wouldn't get chance to eat once the trial started.

At the court house they were searched as they entered the building. Jack, Laura, Ben and Elizabeth were signed in as witnesses, the rest of the group as public guests.

"We'll see you guys in there," Sam said when the escort arrived to take the witnesses to their waiting room. Elizabeth felt John squeeze her shoulder and she gave him a small smile before following the court officer. The waiting area was small, a little cramped with a couple of couches, a water cooler and a small table and chairs squeezed in.

"Please, wait here," their escort told them. "A representative of the accusers will be with you shortly."

He left them alone then and they all took up seats on the couch. "I knew I was going to be nervous, but man, this awful," Laura finally said.

"I'm gonna be so glad when this is over," Jack replied. Elizabeth sat back and took a deep breath, forced herself to relax a little and started running through her testimony in her head.

* * *

><p>They managed to find the public waiting area, a large room with uncomfortable chairs and a water cooler in the corner. There were a few other people there, waiting for one trial or another and Teyla wondered briefly if any of them were there for Cal's trial. They all took up seats, keeping their voices down as they spoke so they didn't annoy the rest of the visitors.<p>

She couldn't imagine how nervous Elizabeth and the others must be; she wasn't sure how well she'd be holding up if she'd had to testify. The possibility had come up when Mathos had been on trial but in the end she hadn't had to do it, a few other people had testified and there had been enough evidence to put him away without her. She hoped his appeal didn't come to anything, she hoped they didn't ask her to testify if it did.

"You okay?" Ronon asked and she looked up at him.

"I'm fine," Teyla smiled and Ronon looked at her as though he could see straight into her mind.

"You've got that look in your eyes you get when you're worried," he said. "They'll be fine you know, this might suck but they'll get through it."

Teyla smiled. "I know."

"That's not what you were thinking about though," he looked at her, studying her, trying to read her. "Is it?"

"Can't get anything passed you, can I?" she replied with another smile. "I was thinking about Mathos, his appeal, I'm hoping they don't make me testify."

They rarely brought up Mathos, it wasn't something Teyla liked to think about, but when they did, Ronon always got a dark look that made Teyla glad she was on Ronon's good side. The same look crossed his face now and she took hold of his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"They said it was unlikely he'd be granted a full appeal, there are no grounds for one. At best he's likely to get a re-reading of the trial, another judge to go through the court documents and determine if the right decision was made based on the evidence that was presented," she told him. "It's something defenders do, a last ditch effort to get their client free, accusers do it when they lose too."

"You're not worried about it?" Ronon questioned.

"Only a little," she replied, "not enough to keep me up at night."

After twenty minutes of sitting around a court officer came into the room and listed the trials that were about to start and which court room they were being held in. There were three trials occurring at the same time, Cal's was in the second court room and the group took up seats in the public seating where they had a perfect view of the trial.

Over the next ten minutes the final preparations were made, the representatives for the accusers and defenders showed up, two for each side. They stood behind their desks, sorting papers and talking quietly among themselves. A couple of security guards walked in, one taking up position by the main entrance behind the public seating another next to a door behind the witness stand. The court writers arrived, two of them who sat at small desks on opposite sides of the court room, paper and pens in hand, ready to record everything that happened when the trial began. A few more interested parties showed up and took up seats in the public seating area. The judges arrived then, wearing formal suits and sombre expressions as they took their seats.

The lead judge, sitting in the middle of the judging panel cleared his throat. "Bring in the suspect."

The door behind the suspect stand opened and they got their first look at Cal since he'd been arrested at the school last year. His hair was a little longer and he appeared to have lost some weight but otherwise looked no worse for wear from his time in pre-trial custody, the place they kept suspects who were awaiting trial, nice cosy places that were much better than prison. He was freshly shaved, wearing a black suit and shiny black shoes.

He was led to the suspect stand, only fifteen feet from the witness stand it was facing. Both stands had a semi circular wooden barrier across the front of them which, when Cal sat down, came to the middle of his chest in height. The officer stepped back a few steps, a discreet distance from the suspect, far enough to be out of the way but close enough to be on hand if he was needed.

Cal turned his head and looked straight at his former friends. His eyes skimmed over the group and a small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips before he returned his gaze forward to the witness stand. Teyla heard John mutter an insult under his breath, was pretty sure she heard another from Marcus who had never quite forgiven himself for being the one to introduce Cal to the group.

"The trial of Cal Philips commences now. Cal Philips, the charges against you read as follows; possession of a type 2 forbidden substance, supply of a type 2 forbidden substance, four counts of assault in the second degree for causing a type 2 forbidden substance to be taken by a person without their knowledge or consent. How do you plead?"

"Guilty to the charge of possession, not guilty to all other charges," Cal stated.

"The defendant pleads guilty to the charge of possession," the judge stated. "Sentencing for this charge will be made at the conclusion of the trial along with any other charges the defendant is found to be guilty of. Accusers, you may begin."

One of the accusers stood, straightening his suit jacket and stepping out from behind his desk. He gave a very brief rundown of what had led to the charges against the defendant and then allowed to the defenders to make their own statement regarding their defence.

"The accusers call their first witness to the stand, Laura Cadman."

* * *

><p>They had been visited briefly by Miss Harper, the representative of the accusers that gone through their testimonies with them last week and would be the accuser to question them on the stand. She had once again given them a quick run through of what they needed to do, the order they would be called in. They'd been left alone again after that and Laura had been getting more and more nervous as the minutes ticked by. She was going to be called first; the trial would already have started on the other side of the door.<p>

"You'll do fine," Elizabeth told her. "Just be honest, you know what happened to you, you know everything you need to say, you'll be fine."

"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself as much as me," Laura smiled.

"Maybe a little," Elizabeth admitted.

"Cal will be in there," Laura said, looking between Elizabeth and Jack. "He'll be sitting right in front of me. I don't know whether that scares me or just makes me really mad. He made me vulnerable and weak, he messed me up so badly that I didn't even feel like myself, he took all my control from me."

"And now you're taking it back," Elizabeth said. "You'll take back all the control he took from you and by the end of this trial, we'll have taken all of his control from him. He'll go to prison, for a long time, he'll have no control of anything there."

"That's unusually vengeful for you Elizabeth," Laura half smiled. "But I guess I'm not the only person he did those things to," she took a breath. "You're right, we'll kick his ass, the four of us," she glanced at Ben.

The door to the court room opened, it was angled so they couldn't see into the court room from where they were sitting, and no one in the court room could see them. "Laura Cadman," a voice called.

She took another breath to try and calm her raging nerves. "See you on the other side."

Her eyes fell on Cal the moment she walked through the door, she kind of hated that he looked completely fine, pre-trial custody was too good for him, he should have spent all these months in prison. Innocent until proven guilty, Laura told herself, they can't treat him like a criminal until he's found guilty of a crime.

There was a smirk in his eyes, cockiness to the way he looked at her though he was careful not to make it obvious. She decided she was more angry than scared; she wanted to dive across the damn room and smack that arrogant look off his face. She stepped up the single step onto the witness stand and sat in the witness chair.

"Laura Cadman," the lead judge said and she turned to look at him. "This is a court of truth and justice, do you swear that anything you say here today will be the truth?"

"I swear it," Laura responded as she'd been told to. The penalty for breaking the oath was prison time, not that she was planning on lying.

"Then begin," the judge stated and Harper stepped forward. Laura took a moment to glance at her friends, her gaze lingering on Carson and Janet, they'd both been her rocks through the whole Allinyas ordeal.

"Miss Cadman, in your own words, please tell the court about your first encounter with the Allinyas drug."

Laura nodded, "I was out with some friends, we went to the clubs. I'd had a few drinks but I know my limits, I wasn't drunk. I don't remember everything that happened that night, only flashes of it. I remember feeling dizzy and light headed, music was too loud, lights too bright. I remember being annoyed about the music and then one of the speakers I was standing near to exploded. My friends realised I'd been drugged and took me back to the school along with my friend, Elizabeth, who had also been drugged. They took care of us through the night, it was a horrible experience from what little I remember, not just for me but for them as well."

"How did you know it was Allinyas?"

"One of my friends, her parents are healers and she'd heard about the drug, knew a little bit about its side effects, she figured it out," Laura replied with another quick glance at Janet.

"The defendant, Cal Philips, was he with you that night?"

"Yes," Laura said looking directly at Cal and keeping her expression neutral. "He came out with us, bought a round of drinks for people because he'd lost a bet with us."

"And you believed him to be responsible for spiking your drinks that night?"

"At the time, no, I thought he was my friend."

She continued to answer questions, going through each time she had been drugged, how she'd felt, how she'd been treated and how they had come to discover that Cal was responsible for all of it. She felt drained by the end of it, and that was before the cross examination started.

"Did you ever see Mr Philips drug your food and drink, or anyone else's?"

"No, I didn't."

"At any time did you suspect he was responsible, did he act in any way that one indicate he was drugging you?"

"No, I had no idea until Jack told us."

"So then you, yourself, have no way to know who was responsible for what happened, no proof, no evidence?"

"No but..."

It went on like that for a while as the defenders attempted to tear her testimony apart. She did the best she could, she told the truth and she couldn't do any more than that, even if she'd wanted to smack the defender as well as Cal by the end of it.

"Thank you Miss Cadman, you may step down from the stand now," the judge told her and with a last glare at Cal she followed the court officer back through the witness room. She wasn't allowed to talk to the other witnesses, she was led straight through the other door into the corridor outside the court room. She was informed she was free to go or could stay and watch the remainder of the trial from the public seating.

Once she was on her own she took a deep breath and headed down the corridor to the bathroom where she splashed some cold water on her face and took a few minutes to calm her rattled nerves. It was done now, all that was left to do was to watch and wait. She headed back to the court room, slipped in the back and went to sit next to Janet.

"Good job," Janet whispered, squeezing her friend's hand.

"The accusers call their next witness to the stand, Elizabeth Weir."

* * *

><p>She told them everything that had happened, at least everything that she could remember. They'd asked her how it had all made her feel, that part had been harder to talk about, it wasn't easy to sit across from someone and talk about how they'd made you feel vulnerable, afraid, alone. Elizabeth made a point of looking at Cal, looking him straight in the eyes as often as she could because she wanted him to see that he didn't make her uncomfortable, even if he did make her feel that way.<p>

"Miss Weir, I hear you're in the Atala guild at your school?" the representative of the defenders questioned.

"I am," Elizabeth said a little confused.

"They're considered by many to be one of the two most elite guilds at the school, very difficult to get into, congratulations on that."

"Thanks."

"They work you hard, particularly in the second semester with the guild competition coming up. Extra meetings and more practices outside of those meetings. A lot of pressure, I would think, to perform well, given the reputation of the guild?"

"There is a pressure but nothing more than we can't handle, and they always tell us that our school work comes first."

"Yes, of course, you also have exams in the second semester."

"Objection, is there a point to this?" the accuser interrupted.

"There is one," the defender stated and the judge allowed him to continue with an order to hurry up and make his point. "Exams are also in the second semester, and so is parents week, I can imagine that there's a great deal of pressure, stress, anxiety."

Elizabeth finally realised where the defender was going with this and sighed inwardly. "Like I said, there's pressure, but no more than I could handle."

"Perhaps," the defender gave her a condescending smile. "Or perhaps it all became a little bit too much. The stress and the pressure, all those nerves, it's understandable that you could have felt weighed down by it all. Perhaps you'd heard how the Allinyas drug could take away the stress, the anxiety, to make your problems seem very far away for a while. Perhaps you chose to test that theory, found that it was true, you couldn't have realised at the time how addictive it was."

"I never took it willingly, or knowingly," Elizabeth stated simply.

"You want us to believe, Miss Weir, that Cal Philips, spent his money to acquire the drug and then repeatedly gave it to you, without receiving payment himself. He drugged you twice, correct?"

"That's correct," Elizabeth said, keeping her anger in check.

"And he drugged your friend, Miss Cadman, many more times than that, your other friend Mr O'Neill, Mr Dolan. I wonder how much of his supply that would have cost him, how much money he basically threw away by dropping bits of his product here and there. That doesn't sound much like the actions of a drug dealer to me, giving away his drugs for nothing. Does that sound like something a drug dealer, any drug dealer, would do?"

"He wanted to get us addicted..." Elizabeth began to explain.

"Just answer the question, Miss Weir, does that sound like the typical actions of a drug dealer to you?"

"No, not the typical actions but..."

"What is the more likely scenario," the defender continued to interrupt her. "That Cal Philips is a drug dealer who secretly ran around your school, drugging unwilling people, using up his valuable product and making no money from it, or that you took the drugs willingly and made up a story to cover for yourself when you were caught."

By the time the cross examination was over and Elizabeth was allowed to step down from the stand she had a headache. She was led through the witness room, gave Jack a small smile of encouragement, as she passed him and then went and found herself a bench to sit on. It had been hard, she'd known it would be, made harder by the fact that she could tell Cal was laughing about it all on the inside. She felt drained, mentally and physically.

* * *

><p>It had been ten minutes since Elizabeth had been led from the witness stand, the accusers and defenders were analysing her testimony, the defenders were still trying to tear it apart. John had been more than angry when the defenders had questioned her, they'd known it was coming, the suggestion they'd made the whole thing up but it had still made him angry. It had only taken Laura a few minutes to join them after her testimony, Elizabeth should have been there by now.<p>

"I'll be back," John whispered to Teyla who gave him a quick nod. He slipped quietly out of the back of the court room, finding Elizabeth sitting on a bench down the corridor.

"Hey," he greeted as he walked over to sit beside her. "That looked painful."

Elizabeth gave him a small smile, "Could have been worse."

"I thought you would have come and joined us."

"I'm coming, I just have a headache," she told him and then sighed. "I'm glad it's done. I don't think I've ever been that nervous about anything, ever, not even our first date."

John smiled. "Well, now I'm just hurt."

Elizabeth laughed quietly and leaned to the side toward him, letting her head drop onto his shoulder. They'd come such a long way, he thought, there was a time when Elizabeth would never have openly accepted comfort from him, or anyone else. He kissed the top of her head seconds before the door to the court room opened and their friends all walked out.

"They're breaking for lunch," Janet explained. "Poor Jack is still stuck in the witness room."

"At least he's got Ben in there," Laura replied and took a seat at the other side of Elizabeth. "So, that was not fun."

"No, it wasn't," Elizabeth replied. "But we've done it now, we don't have to do it again... I hope."

"I'm definitely ready to eat now, I had no appetite this morning but I'm starving now," Laura stated. "Where are we heading for lunch?"

* * *

><p>"Why, Mr O'Neill, did you not come forward along with your friends when you realised you had been drugged as well?"<p>

"Because I'd seen the way they were being treated, people didn't believe them and those who did, pitied them. I didn't want that, I didn't want people to see me as weak and vulnerable so I kept quiet about it. I figured the police were already looking for the person who did it, they didn't need to know about me as well," Jack replied, the defenders were being brutal in their cross examination and Jack was more than ready for it all to be over.

"So you let your friends take it on all alone," the defender stated. "Let me ask you Mr O'Neill, why did Cal come to you, you and not Miss Cadman or Miss Weir, when according to your statement, Miss Cadman had been drugged more times than you?"

"I was in a bad place," Jack admitted. "I was still suffering from being drugged and then I received news that brother... that my brother had been killed. I was a mess and Cal tried to take advantage of that by offering me a way out, a way to make the pain go away."

"And how long was it after discovering who was behind the drugging before you informed Principal Morlin of what you knew?"

Jack sighed. "A day, it was a day."

"A whole day?" the defender questioned. "You were being drugged against your will, your friends were being drugged against their will and you took a day to come forward about it? Or perhaps Mr Philips came to see you in your room, he was your friend, he was concerned about your welfare. Did he catch you Mr O'Neill, did he know what you'd done, that you'd been taking the Allinyas yourself? Did you decide to make up a story that would implicate him, make it so no one believed him? Did you know he had possession of the Allinyas drug, that he had some in his room which would be found if the police searched it?"

"I did take a day, because I was in a bad place, because I was hurting from the loss of my brother. I was tempted, for a short time I was tempted but my conscience kicked in and I went to Morlin, I told her everything. Cal was never my friend, he only pretended to be."

Cal looked down sadly, as though those words actually hurt him, he was acting for the judges and Jack could only hope they didn't fall for it.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**Authors Note: Short chapter but I'm going away or a few days and wanted to post something before I left. Thanks for the reviews and I hope you enjoy the chapter. **

Chapter 10

Laura stood in the court room and watched as the judges found Cal guilty of all charges. He was sentenced to prison, fifteen years of it. He turned angry eyes on her, on Elizabeth, Jack and Ben who had all testified against him, who had all helped to ensure he'd gone to prison. The court officer stepped up behind him, waited for him to step down from the stand and took hold of his elbow as he did so. He was placed in handcuffs and led out of the court room. It was over.

She let out a deep breath, letting it go, letting it all go, it was done now and she could move on. She hugged Jack and Elizabeth, shook hands with Ben and could see the relief she felt was shared by them.

"We need to celebrate," Vala said with grin. "Dinner, tonight, it's mandatory."

"I'm in," Laura said and then turned to Ben. "You're welcome to join us if you want to; you've got as much reason to celebrate as we do."

Ben smiled. "Thanks, but I'd rather just pretend that none of this ever happened, I've got my final year of school to focus on now."

"Well, it was good to meet you, despite the circumstances," she said and once again shook his hand. "Let's get out of here; I've had enough of this place."

They made a quick stop at the restaurant they would usually eat at when they were all together, not many places could accommodate such a large group on short notice. Sam and Teyla ran in to make a reservation for them all before they headed back to school.

"You look happy," Carson commented as he walked along beside her through the forest.

Laura smiled and nodded. "I'm just relieved, really, really relieved," she told him, glancing up at him. She wasn't the kind of person who wore her heart on her sleeve; she didn't like admitting to needing people or to being vulnerable. It needed to be said though, and she'd tell Janet the same thing later, they'd both been amazing through it all and they deserved to know that. "You've been really great Carson, you and Janet have kind of been my rocks through this whole thing, I couldn't have gotten through it all without you."

"You would have done the same if it had been the other way around," Carson stated.

"Still, thank you," Laura said finding the blush creeping up his neck somewhat endearing.

"You're welcome."

Once they were back at school they went their separate ways to get ready for dinner. Laura put the suit she'd had to wear to one side so she could get it cleaned before she put it away again. She pulled black jeans and a nice shirt out of her wardrobe and smiled.

"Much more my style."

* * *

><p>He was heading to the cafeteria when he heard her voice calling his name and he sighed inwardly, debating for a moment whether to keep walking and pretend he hadn't heard her. She called for him again though sounding closer and he knew he couldn't believably get away with it so he stopped and turned.<p>

"Hello Chaya," he greeted, forcing a polite smile.

"John," she smiled as she reached him. "How are you?"

"I'm great, running late for meeting my friends though," he gestured toward the cafeteria doors.

"I won't keep you then," she told him. "My parents just asked me to say 'hello' to you in the letter I got from them yesterday. They said it was really nice to see you this summer. I think they really enjoyed visiting Caldera, I know I did, it was great to get to spend some time with you. We're both so busy during school it seems like we hardly have time for each other."

"Well, I'm glad you family enjoyed their visit, I'm sure my parents will be pleased to know," he said as diplomatically as possible. He had hated their visit, he's spent the majority of the week trying to avoid them and forced to make polite conversation when he'd been duty bound to be in the same room as them. Chaya still had her sights set firmly on him and she wasn't one to give up on something when she had decided she wanted it.

"You were heading into the cafeteria right?" Chaya questioned and John nodded. "Me too," she said started towards the door. "Well come on then you said you were going to be late."

He followed her, holding the door open for her and spotting his friends easily enough through the crowd. "Well, it was nice to catch up Chaya," he said. "I'll see you around."

"You definitely will, ah, there's Elsie," she gestured to a table not far from where his own friends were sitting and he held back a sigh as she fell in step beside him. "I'll be sure to tell my parents you said hello. They'll be happy to know you enjoyed our visit to you this summer as much as we did. We should make it a regular thing, spending the week at your place, it really was great, I'll see you later."

John watched her saunter off to her friend as he dropped down into the empty seat next to Elizabeth. He turned to her, finding her staring at him with a raised eyebrow. "Visiting with you this summer, spending a week at you place?" she questioned.

"Her family visited Caldera this summer, they were staying at the Governor's mansion with us," he told her but her expression didn't change. "Believe me; I'd rather have spent the week with a bunch of wraith than with her family."

Elizabeth nodded but didn't say anything as she turned her attention back to the rest of their friends who were discussing the latest sociology assignment. He probably should have told her he'd spent a week of his summer trapped in a house with Chaya but it just hadn't seemed like a big deal, it was just one of the things he had to endure because he was part of the governing family, something she would understand.

He leaned toward her. "You're not mad at me are you?"

"Why would I be mad at you?" she questioned without turning around.

"I don't know," he replied. "For not telling you and for spending time with Chaya."

Elizabeth turned back to him with an amused smile on her face. "Stop beating yourself up, I'm not actually mad you," she laughed.

He glared at her, "That was mean."

"You'll survive it," she replied turning back to the group's conversation again but this time leaning back into him.

* * *

><p>Potions hadn't been so bad this year, Jack decided as he and Teyla walked out of the potions lab. He still sucked at it but without the monotone of Professor Trell's voice putting him to sleep every lesson it wasn't quite so unbearable. Teyla was fairly good at potions, partnering with her meant he usually got a good grade for the class, he just hoped he could maintain it, he had to at least obtain a level 3 in potions to be considered for the protectorates guild.<p>

"My anniversary with Ronon is coming up, should I book dinner and surprise him or should I tell him I'm booking dinner?" Teyla questioned as they walked out of the main building.

"Anniversary?" Jack questioned.

"Yes, you know, one year since our first date," she told him.

"Ah, right, that," Jack replied distracted by the two teachers and a couple of nurses he'd spotted carrying a stretcher between them.

"What if he's trying to surprise me and I ruin it by talking to him about it, or making my own plans and..." Teyla questioned, trailing off when she too noticed the stretcher. A few other students had stopped to try and see what was going on. They passed right by Jack and Teyla, it was girl on the stretcher between them. She looked unconscious, her skin a pasty white colour. "I wonder what happened to her?"

"Could be anything?" Jack said. "Maybe she's sick, maybe she's passed out from stress, it happens."

Teyla nodded, "They don't seem to be in any rush, that's for sure."

"As for your anniversary, I'd say ask him, safest bet," Jack returned to their earlier conversation.

It was very evident when they arrived at the table that Vala was in a bad mood. She was sitting quietly to the side, an expression that sat somewhere between anger and sulking as she stared straight ahead of her. If he was curious as to what had put such a carefree person into such a bad mood, Jack wasn't dumb enough to ask her about it. Instead he took a seat at the table and sent a questioning look to Cameron who was sitting next to her. He just shrugged his shoulders and went back to highlighting the work he had in front of him.

"What's up with Vala?" Rodney questioned as he too took a seat at the table and Jack was Cameron grimace.

"It's none of your business," Vala snapped. "But I mean seriously, who does that, it's rude and completely uncalled for, just because I'm here and they're there, that doesn't make it okay."

"What are you talking about Vala?" Cameron questioned.

"Nikki," Vala said like that name was supposed to mean something to them; Cameron just raised a eyebrow at her and waited patiently. "My friend at home, former friend now, she sent me a letter telling me she was dating Jordon."

"And who is Jordon?" Jack asked.

"My ex," Vala said. "We broke up just before I came to Pegasus; it wasn't an amicable break up."

"Ah," Teyla nodded her head slowly as though that explained everything.

"But, he's your ex," Jack pointed out.

Vala glared at him, "That's not the point. She's my friend and she didn't even talk to me about it, didn't even consider how I might feel about the whole thing. She knows how bad the break up was, when I say it wasn't amicable, I mean it was downright ugly. He actually told me I shouldn't come here, that I shouldn't accept my place here because it would mean being away from him. When I told him I was coming here and that was that, he broke up with me!"

"Wow," Teyla shook her head. "He sounds like a jerk, you're better off without him Vala."

"I know I am," Vala agreed. "I just can't believe Nikki would start seeing him without talking to me. I mean, I don't care if she wants to see him, I'm not with him anymore but it would have been the decent thing to do to tell me about it. She's been seeing him for two months; that means she was seeing him while I was home, she could have come and talked to me then."

"Hey, what are you guys doing?" Ronon questioned as he sat in the empty seat beside Teyla, his arm crossing the back of her chair.

"Trying to understand women," Jack replied. "Normally, I wouldn't even bother but we kind of got sucked into this one without realising it."

"More fool you."

* * *

><p>It had been completely successful; he'd wanted to test the product he'd purchased before he sent it home to his father. He'd needed something to done and this had provided him with the perfect way to do it without leaving any of his fingerprints on it, so to speak. No-one would ever know it was him, there was no connection to him and even if they suspected foul play they'd never know he was the one behind it.<p>

He was tempted to keep it, he could think of farm more uses for it than sitting in his father's vault at home. His father would be furious with him if he kept it though so he'd packaged it up with a brief letter explaining what it was and how it had come into his possession. It was sitting on his desk now, waiting to be posted tomorrow.

"I still can't believe it actually worked," Sora stated, eyeing the package warily. "It's pretty powerful stuff."

"Are you sure we shouldn't turn it in?" Laden questioned and Kolya glared at him. "I just mean, Sora's right, it's really dark and powerful, what if... never mind, you know what you're doing, don't pay any attention to me."

"I am right," Kolya said angrily, he really hated it when people questioned him and Laden had started making a habit out of it. "I'm always right; you'd do well to remember that in the future Laden."

"Of course," Laden nodded. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, you shouldn't have."

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**Authors Note: Thanks for the reviews, enjoy this chapter!**

Chapter 11

A year, it seemed crazy that it had been a whole year since she and Ronon had sat in this restaurant, two tables over, on their first date. She'd asked him because she was making a point to Elizabeth, and because she had been a little attracted to him. By the end of their first date she'd known it would be more, hoped it would be, and now here they were.

"To one year," Teyla toasted. Ronon clinked his glass against hers with a smile.

"It's been a good one," he told her. "And you achieved your goal, though us dating had nothing to do with it."

"You mean getting John and Elizabeth together?" Teyla questioned and Ronon nodded. "I'm not particularly proud of how I achieved that in the end. Outing them both the way I did was kind of cruel, they were infuriating me and I reacted. At least they're both happy now."

"Think they'll be having dinner a year from now?" Ronon asked.

"They damn well better be," Teyla told him. "I may have achieved it through less than polite means but getting them together was hard work. I can't believe how much things have changed since we first started at Pegasus, I didn't even know you and now I can't imagine not knowing you, or any of the others. It's as though we were all meant to find each other."

"Fate?" Ronon grinned.

"I know you don't believe in that kind of stuff, I don't even know if I believe in it entirely. I'm just saying, it's amazing how we've all come together, it's like a second family," Teyla explained.

"I know what you mean," Ronon said with a thoughtful expression. "I barely remember my family; I've been in the orphanage so long it's hard remembering what came before but what we have here, it does kind of feel like family."

Teyla smiled and took his hand; she knew how much it took for him to talk about his past. He rarely brought it up, even with her, and she knew better than to push him to talk about it. She doubted he would ever know how much it meant to her that he could open up to her as much as he did. "I think we're going to be stuck with these people for life."

"I don't know whether that's a nice thought or a terrifying one," Ronon smiled again and Teyla leaned back in her chair again.

"I think it's both," she replied. "As much as some people infuriate me, I don't think I could do without any of them. I hope we don't become one of those groups that makes all these plan to keep in touch after we finish and then don't do it. I've already lost contact with most of my friends from before Pegasus, I guess people drift apart, I just hope it doesn't happen to all of us."

"With people like you and Vala in the group, I don't see how that would even be possible, you wouldn't let us all lose touch with one another," Ronon told her and she nodded.

"I guess that's true," she said as she looked around the restaurant, except for the family in the corner, everyone in the restaurant appeared to be couples. She wondered how many of them were here on first dates, or their fifth, how many were here for anniversaries, how many of them would still be together a year from now.

"I got something for you," Ronon told her and she smiled as he pulled out an envelope from his pocket. She eyed it for a moment, opened it, pulled out two tickets to the theatre event she'd been talking to Elizabeth and Janet about a few weeks ago. She hadn't thought for one second that Ronon would be interested in going.

She looked up at him with a smile she couldn't quite keep off her face. "Really?"

"I heard you talking about it, you sounded like you really wanted to see it so..." he trailed off and despite where they were she yanked him forward, placed a hard kiss on his mouth.

"I kind of love you," she said when she released him. They didn't say it often, only a handful of times between them in the entire year together but it was true and she made a mental note to say it more. "And here is your gift."

She reached into her purse and pulled out the small box she'd wrapped a couple of weeks ago. He smiled like a boy on Christmas as he opened it. It was a leather cuff, the symbols of courage, honour and dedication embedded into it. He took it out of the box, examining it closely, his face giving nothing away and Teyla started to feel a little self-conscious as she waited.

"It's not as cool as theatre tickets, I know," she said as Ronon put the cuff on. He looked up at her and grinned again.

"It's perfect," he told her. "I love it, and you."

She couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face, "I'm glad to hear it."

* * *

><p>The doctors told him it was a pulled muscle, the reason his leg was in agony and he'd limped his way to the infirmary was a pulled muscle. Rodney demanded that the doctors check again because there was no way it was just a pulled muscle. They checked again, Rodney suspected they were just humouring him but they gave him the same diagnosis, handed him some medication for the pain and told him to rest for a couple of days.<p>

"Let's go Rodney," Radek said before Rodney could object again.

Rodney glared after the doctor as he got down from the bed. "It's like they're not even concerned."

"Probably because there's nothing to be concerned about," Radek replied.

The doctor had walked over to another bed where a girl was sitting, she had a bag packed next to her, she'd obviously been here for a while. She gave the doctor a half hearted smile as he approached.

"You're free to go now," he told her. "If you have any more hallucinations you need to come back and tell us."

Rodney turned his attention to Radek, feeling bad for eavesdropping. "Let's just get out of here so I can take these pills."

He limped his way to the cafeteria and sat at the table where Sam and Vala were deep in conversation about Vala's date. They both looked at Rodney as he dropped into a chair with a deep and heavy sigh, he shouldn't be made to suffer this way, he didn't deserve it.

"Leg feeling better Rodney?" Sam questioned.

"He's pulled a muscle," Radek explained. "They gave him something for the pain, told him to rest."

"It' not just a pulled muscle, I'm sure of it," Rodney replied.

"Pulled muscles can hurt pretty bad," Sam pointed out.

"I'll go and get you some water to take those pills with," Radek told him leaving the table and returning a few minutes later with two bottles of water and a plate of fries. "So who are you going on a date with Vala, is it the same guy you went on a date with a couple of weeks ago?" he questioned as he sat down again. Rodney grabbed the bottle of water and took one of the pills the doctor had given him, how long did these things take to kick in?

"No, it's a third year I met last week," she told him and then glanced at the silver watch around her wrist. "I should probably go and get ready actually, have a nice evening guys."

"Sure I'll have a nice evening, sitting here in agony," Rodney muttered after Vala had gone. "What a thing to say to someone in obvious pain."

* * *

><p>Elizabeth knocked on the door of Carlie's room, it opened a moment later to reveal her sister, dressed to impress, more than usual. She took in her sister's appearance as she stepped into the room. "Going somewhere?"<p>

"We're going to the clubs in town this weekend," Carlie told her. "I'm trying to decide what I should wear. Do you think I should where this blue dress," she said gesturing to what she wearing and then picked up a pink one from the bed and holding it in front of herself, "or this one?"

"You always look best in pink," Elizabeth replied and Carlie looked in the mirror and nodded.

"You're right, pink is my colour," Carlie agreed and then tossed the dress back onto the bed. "Are you just here to check up on me?"

"I promised our father that I would make sure you settled in here," Elizabeth replied. "He wouldn't be happy if I didn't."

"Well, there's certainly more you could have done to help me settle. You kind of ran off and left me on our first day and I've had to work most things out for myself but I've managed just fine. I'll be sure to tell father you've been checking in with me at least," Carlie replied with a smile as though she was doing Elizabeth a favour.

"I appreciate it," Elizabeth told her. "How are your classes going?"

"Oh, they're classes, they're mostly dull but they're going fine. I can't believe how much homework they hand out, it's like they don't think we have lives outside of our school work," Carlie told her looking at her desk where a couple of books were piled up on the edge underneath several different kinds of makeup and her hair brush. Carlie turned her gaze back to Elizabeth, her face serious. "I hope you got that whole Allinyas thing sorted out, it wouldn't do to have that kind of a mark against our family. When is that trial?"

"It was last week," Elizabeth said. "It went fine, Cal was found guilty."

"That's good," Carlie nodded her head. "If he hadn't then those rumours could have done even more damage to our family than they already are."

"Yeah," Elizabeth replied. "It's also good that my friends and I got justice for what was done to us."

"That too," Carlie waved her off. "Speaking of things that father wouldn't like, I've noticed you spend an awful lot of time with John Sheppard. It's one thing to be friends with him at school Elizabeth, which father and I have tried to tell you is a mistake itself, but it's another thing to be dating him."

"Carlie, I choose my own friends and it's up to me who I date," Elizabeth told her.

"He's the future governor of Caldera," Carlie pointed out. "Our county and his are political enemies. If father were to discover you're seeing him then he would be very displeased Elizabeth."

"Our counties are not political enemies," Elizabeth said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Carlie making it more dramatic than it needed to be. "Our father doesn't like the governor and governess of Caldera, it's a personal issue, their politics are actually not that different."

"That's really not the point Elizabeth, you know how our father feels about his family. It's disrespectful of you to start a relationship with him knowing what father would think about it. Besides, I don't know how many times I'm going to have to tell you this Elizabeth, he's using you and probably for more than one thing," Carlie said as she sat down at her dresser and started touching up her makeup. "I know you don't want to hear this Elizabeth but someone has to tell you before you embarrass yourself and our family."

It took Elizabeth a moment to reign in her temper. "I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions about who I spend my time with. I don't need you, or our father, passing judgements on people you don't even know."

Carlie looked affronted. "We're just trying to help you."

"No," Elizabeth replied. "You're not. Have a good time this weekend Carlie."

She left then before Carlie could get another word in. She'd been planning on heading to the library to get some work done after checking on her sister but she was too annoyed to be able to concentrate on it. She needed to walk off her mood so she pulled her coat tighter around herself and headed for the trees. It wasn't until she had cleared the trees and reached the river that she stopped and realised that the conversation was going to bite her in the ass later.

Carlie would write to their father, tell him everything and Elizabeth would be trouble. Her sister had been right that her father probably wouldn't approve of her relationship with John, she'd already considered the possibility and decided she would deal with it when the time came. Now she was going to have to deal with her father's anger about that and his anger about the way she'd talked to Carlie, which she had no doubt would be exaggerated by her sister.

"This is why you don't get along with him in the first place," she told herself. "You're too outspoken, you don't know when to shut up."

She hadn't done anything wrong though, not in dating John and not in standing up for herself to Carlie. She was tired of her sister and father telling her what she should and shouldn't be doing, she was almost twenty, they couldn't keep controlling her and she couldn't keep letting them. She needed to stand up for herself more, and not just to Carlie.

* * *

><p>They had opted to work on their project in the cafeteria instead of the library since this wasn't the quiet research part of the project. They were starting work on their presentation boards which would be used as visual aids when they delivered the presentations to the class after Christmas. They had several large, thick pieces of card piled up at one end of the table, glue sticks and scissors that they kept losing track off and they'd had to drag over one of the trash cans so they could get rid of all the excess bits of paper they were generating. They'd requested copies of various pictures from books and the school's copy department had done their thing and magically copied the image onto paper for them.<p>

John sucked in a breath through clenched teeth drawing everyone's attention, "False alarm," he breathed, staring at the half cut out picture of a man in his hand. "I almost cut off this guy's head."

Elizabeth looked at the mess around them; they'd been at it almost an hour and they'd barely made a dent in what they needed to do. "We're not even going to get close to finishing this today."

"Good thing we still have two and half months to work on it then."

"We still have some research left to do but we should have it done in plenty of time," Teyla said as she glued a piece of paper that read 'Alternative methods of learning magic' to the card. "We made an early start on the project; I know most groups haven't even started the research yet."

"Wow, you guys have made a mess," Marcus stated as he and Carson sat down at the empty table next to them. "What are you doing?"

"Magical ethics assignment," Jack answered as he tried to peal something off his card that he'd glued into the wrong place.

"You guys are putting the presentation together already?" Marcus questioned. "We've barely started looking into the issues we're supposed to be working on."

"My group only started the research last week," Carson added.

"See," Teyla said with a grin. "We're ahead."

"I feel like I need to go find Laura and Janet and get to work," Marcus said as he looked at the only card they'd managed to finish, the 'introduction' card. "What issues did you get?"

"Unofficial and illegal magic training and use of illegal gaining magic," Elizabeth told them.

"We got the gaining magic one too," Carson told her. "Glad we didn't get the unofficial magic training one though, that's a big topic to cover. I'm going to get some food, do you guys want anything while I'm up there?"

"No, we've got a lot of snacks in Jack's bag," John said.

"Unless there's cake," Jack shouted when Carson and Marcus headed for the food.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Are you sure you left it in here?" John questioned as he and Elizabeth walked into his room. "I don't remember seeing it anywhere."

"It's got to be here," Elizabeth replied as she started searching his room. "I've searched my entire room and it's not there and the last time I remember having it is when I was studying here with you. It's due back at the library tomorrow, I really don't want to get fined."

"We'll find it," he told her as he helped her look.

Elizabeth searched the pile of books he'd left on his desk and was relieved to find her library book in the middle of them. "I've got it," she said, lifting the books from on top of it and putting them to one side.

"I guess I just scooped it up with the rest of my books," John rubbed the back of his neck. "I should probably organise that desk better."

"That's what the shelves are for," Elizabeth gestured to the empty shelves above the desk. She caught sight of something among the mess on his desk, a crumpled up piece of paper and she pulled it out of the pile, sitting on the edge of his bed to read it. "Is this your history assignment?"

John grimaced, "Yeah, kinda."

"What happened to it?" she asked, trying to smooth out the creases with the heel of her hand, sighing when she failed. "You know this is due in a few days right?"

"I know," John nodded. "I'm starting again, that was a bad attempt."

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes and then looked down at the paper, reading the unfinished essay out loud. John groaned and sat next to her, Elizabeth smiled in amusement, shifting the paper away from him when he tried to make a grab for it.

"Enough with the torture," he whined but she finished reading before she handed it back to him.

"There's nothing wrong with it, it's a good essay, or start of an essay," she said as he put the paper aside.

"Well, I didn't like it," he shrugged and then grinned. "You know, if you cared, you'd write it for me."

"But if I really cared, I wouldn't write it for you, but I would help you," she told him and then looked thoughtful for a moment. "Do I care that much?"

"You know that you do," he leaned forward and kissed her.

She grinned against his mouth, "Maybe."

His hands moved down her sides, one of them wrapped around her, pulled her closer. The kiss grew deeper, more demanding. She felt herself falling backwards, John moved with her, his body pressed against hers and she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, fast and hard, like her own. It wasn't the first time their kisses had started heading down this path but it was the first time she'd felt sure she wanted to keep going.

"Elizabeth," John mumbled and then pulled back slightly, she could see the question in his eyes before he asked it.

"I'm sure," she said and pulled him back to her, their lips meeting again.

* * *

><p>Sam sighed as Rodney looked over her shoulder once again to copy the notes she'd made. He was an exceptional student, when the subject actually interested him. Unfortunately, sociology was probably his least favourite subject and so his attention tended to waver. She should develop some kind of shorthand that was impossible for anyone else to understand, that would keep Rodney from looking over her shoulder every few minutes.<p>

She couldn't blame him entirely though, the Alteran council wasn't exactly the most riveting topic and with her father on the council, she already knew a lot of what they were being taught. She listened anyway, made her notes; paying particular attention to anything new she learned.

"That's it for today class. Your lesson on Thursday has been cancelled, if it is possible, you may attend one of the other sessions, if not then please come and see me at the end of the week for a catch up assignment."

"Well, that hardly seems fair," Rodney complained. "They cancel our class and we end up with extra homework."

"You wouldn't mind so much if it was potions," Sam said as she packed up her things.

"It's not potions though," Rodney replied and Sam rolled her eyes as he walked away from the table with a slight limp. She knew his leg had already healed from the pulled muscle, he walked fine most of the time but every now and again when he thought about it he seemed to develop a phantom limp.

She looked at Radek, "Is it bad that I'm tempted to kick him in the shin so that he has a reason to be limping around?"

"Not at all," Radek said with a smile. "If you don't do it, I will."

Sam laughed as the two of them followed Rodney out of the classroom. The corridor was crowded with students all heading for lunch and Rodney's limp soon disappeared when his attention was on weaving through the crowd.

When they arrived at the cafeteria it was already packed and they couldn't actually get a free table so they went to their usual backup plan when the weather was decent enough to permit it. They grabbed their lunches and headed down to the river. Jack, John, Elizabeth and Teyla were already there, sitting under a tree with their own lunches.

"Still no free tables I take it?" John questioned as they all sat down.

"None," Sam replied as she sat next to Jack who was eating fries from a paper plate.

"They need a bigger cafeteria," Rodney stated, "There should be enough room in there for every student."

"They have enough room in there for most of the students but we're big group, we take up two tables. If no one gets there fast enough, we're not likely to get that," Radek pointed out. "Besides, it's not so bad down here, a little chilly today but nothing a decent coat can't fix."

"Sometimes your optimism is annoying," Rodney said as he took a bite out of his sandwich.

"And sometimes you're unnecessarily mean," Sam responded as Carson and Daniel arrived.

* * *

><p>Girl time was something they didn't get enough of, Teyla thought as they stepped out of the cute little boutique that had opened in town last week. She had a new dress, folded neatly in the bag dangling from her wrist. Elizabeth had refused to buy anything no matter how hard Teyla had tried to push the little red dress she'd found on her.<p>

Sam hadn't bought anything either but the rest of the girls had all splashed out a little and bought themselves something new. Now they just needed a night on the town to show off all their new purchases.

"Hey, we lost Elizabeth to the book store," Janet announced and Teyla turned around to see Elizabeth walking through the door of a book store, Sam and Kate hot on her heels.

"I guess we're stopping in the book store then," she said as she moved to join her friends.

She wasn't big on reading these days, when she'd been younger she hadn't been able to get enough of books. She wasn't sure why that had changed, it was something she wanted to get back to eventually. Elizabeth always seemed content curled up in bed with a book and you could almost guarantee if her friend was carrying a big enough bag that there was a book in it.

As if sensing her thoughts, Elizabeth pushed a book into her hands. "You'll like this one."

"Why, what's it about?" she questioned.

"A woman who leads her tribe, they have to face a dangerous enemy that has plagued her people for generations. I won't spoil it anymore than that," Elizabeth told her. "But trust me, you'll like it."

Teyla nodded. "Ok, since you constantly buy things that I make you buy, I'll get this."

"Good," Elizabeth smiled triumphantly. "You should read more."

A few purchases later they decided to take a break and sit down for lunch. They had to put a couple of tables together but it was something they were used to. Three different conversations started up while they waited for their food and they quietened down when their meals arrived.

"Did you hear anything about the Mathos appeal?" Janet asked and Teyla swallowed the food in her mouth before nodding.

"Yeah, it failed," Teyla told them. "They judged the trial was conducted properly and fairly, all evidence was admissible and the ruling acceptable. He's going to be serving out the remainder of that jail sentence, fifteen years."

"That's good," Laura said. "Cal and Mathos both in jail, just as it should be."

"And on that note, on to happier topics. Teyla, you never did tell us how your anniversary with Ronon went."

* * *

><p>The letter arrived as expected, it had been almost two weeks since she'd last spoken to Carlie and she'd been awaiting the arrival of the angry letter from her father. She stared at his handwriting on the envelope; it lacked its usual amount of flourish which meant he'd been angry when he wrote it. She sighed and opened it unfolding the letter to reveal more of her father's handwriting.<p>

_Elizabeth,_

_I was very unhappy to hear from Carlie that you have not been doing all that you can to ensure she is settling into school well. She tells me that the last time the two of you spoke you were very rude when all she was trying to do was give you some good advice. She was not wrong, I do not approve of your relationship with John Sheppard, his family and ours are political enemies and I will not have you complicating matters._

_I am deeply disappointed in you Elizabeth, you are making bad choices and those choices are reflecting poorly on this family and on our county. I cannot allow you to continue doing so, you will change your attitude and behave in the manner that is expected of you, or I will have no choice but to pull you out of Pegasus Magic School and bring you home where I can limit the damage you cause. _

_Consider what I have said carefully Elizabeth._

_Father. _

Elizabeth folded the letter back up, placing it back in the envelope she slid it in between a couple of the books on her shelf so Teyla wouldn't find it. He'd actually threatened to pull her out of the school and Elizabeth knew her father didn't make empty threats, if he said he was going to do something, he meant it. She'd known there would be repercussions, she just hadn't realised it would be this bad.

She walked to the window, looked out over the campus. She loved it here, in some ways she felt that she'd really found herself here, her life had changed since she'd started at Pegasus. The thought that her father might take it all away from her was terrifying. What did he want her to do, break up with John? She didn't want to do that, this new relationship she had with John was important to her, she wasn't sure where it was going, they'd barely managed to find their rhythm with each other, but she knew she wanted to find out.

How could she do that if she was taken miles away? She wouldn't be able to see him, she'd only be able to write and she knew that wasn't enough for either of them. She was stuck, no matter what she did she was going to lose her relationship with John, was it better to be here and have him as a friend than not to have him in her life at all? At least she would be able to see him, she'd be able to stay here and study, be with the rest of her friends.

The door behind her opened and Elizabeth forced a smile as she turned around. Teyla walked in, dropping the pile of books she'd been clutching on her bed. "You know, I used to think I needed more exercise but I'm fairly sure between carrying these things around every day and the amount of stairs we have to run up and down that I get more than enough now."

"Probably true," Elizabeth said and Teyla looked up at her, cocked her head to the side inquiringly and frowned.

"What's wrong?" she questioned.

"Nothing," Elizabeth replied, surprised and a little concerned that Teyla could see straight through her mask so easily. "I have a bit of a headache, I was just thinking of lying down for a little while."

"Have you taken something for it?" Teyla asked and Elizabeth nodded.

"Just before you came in, half an hour and I'll probably be good as new again," she said as she moved to sit on her bed.

"Well I was about to ask you if you wanted to come down for dinner, do you want me to bring you something back instead?"

Elizabeth smiled, "That would be great, thanks."

"No problem, I'll see you in a little while, feel better," Teyla said as she turned and left the room again. Elizabeth watched her go and waited until she heard the door close and lock before she allowed the smile to fall from her face.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

**Authors Note: Thanks to Sparky She-Demon, Steph 7085 and the two guests who reviewed the last chapter, hope you enjoy this one. **

Chapter 13

The library was always quiet at that time, curfew had already come and gone and they'd have to get a curfew pass before they left so they wouldn't get in trouble with the guards. Jack packed his books into his bag and waited for Sam to do the same. She'd stayed up late with him to help him out with the potions homework he'd been struggling with all week and he finally had a piece of work to hand in tomorrow.

Sam yawned as she picked up her bag, "Next time you should just tell me you need help rather than leaving it until the last minute."

Jack smiled, "I would have thought of something."

"I'm sure you would," Sam returned the smile. "I was meaning to ask you something, is something going on with Elizabeth, you're closer to her than I am but she just..."

"Doesn't seem like herself," Jack finished when Sam trailed off. "Yeah, you're not the only one that's noticed. I don't know what's going on with her though, Teyla tried to talk to her but Elizabeth just dismissed it, said she was fine, just dealing with some Carlie drama."

"I guess that could be it but I don't know, seems like more than that," Sam shrugged. "Maybe she's talked to John about it."

"I don't think so, I've seen him giving her worried looks, like he's trying to figure out what's going on with her too," Jack said. Any further discussion of Elizabeth was cut off as they heard a scream coming from the second floor. The two of them ran for the winding metal staircase, reaching the second floor in time to hear another scream. They followed the sound to where a girl was cowering in the corner.

"Get away," she screamed, throwing her hands up as if to protect herself but there was nothing there.

Sam took a cautious step towards her as Jack heard footsteps running up behind him, the librarian.

"Hey," Sam said softly as she slowly approached the girl.

"No, you have to run," the girl cried out, "it'll get you."

"What will get me?" Sam questioned, taking another careful step forward. The girl looked up at her and then looked around, her face full of terror.

"It was right there," she said shakily. "Where did it go?"

Sam reached the girl and kneeled down beside her. "There's nothing here, whatever it was it's gone now."

The girl looked at Sam and then burst into tears, Sam wrapped an arm around her shoulder and allowed the girl to collapse against her. The librarian told them to stay where they were and then disappeared among the stacks of shelves. Jack stayed back, he didn't want to risk scaring the girl anymore than she clearly already was and Sam seemed to have the situation under control. The librarian returned a few minutes later, a healer arrived not long after that and took the girl, who was much calmer now, from Sam.

Jack and Sam gave their names to the librarian and were told someone might want to talk to them tomorrow.

"Well that's one way to end a day," Sam said as they walked out of the library.

"I wonder what was wrong with her," Jack said looking back at the library, "I mean she was clearly terrified of something."

"We'll probably never find out," Sam replied and Jack sighed.

"Probably not," he said and then leaned down to kiss her on the cheek and say goodnight before they headed to their separate dorms.

* * *

><p>Elizabeth gave John a smile as he sat beside her, it was weak at best and she knew it. She knew he'd noticed as well, as he'd noticed a hundred other things over the last few days. She was struggling to figure out what to do about her father's letter. She didn't want to lose him, but if she disobeyed her father then she wouldn't just lose what she had with him but she'd lose him altogether along with everything else she had at Pegasus.<p>

He started talking to Marcus about something but she wasn't paying enough attention to know what. The cafeteria had been emptying over the last hour as most student finished their meals and left to enjoy their Friday nights.

"I've gotta go, you guys sure you don't want to join us for dinner?" Marcus questioned. Elizabeth had been asked the question several times since she'd told them she didn't want to join the rest of the group for dinner in town. John had initially said he would go but, on hearing Elizabeth wasn't going, he'd changed his mind.

She saw him glance at her out of the corner of his eye before he replied. "No, we're good, you guys have fun."

Marcus nodded, gave Elizabeth a look that suggested John wasn't the only one to have noticed something was wrong. She needed to pick herself up and do a better job of pretending everything was fine, she used to be better at it. She offered him a smile, hoping this one looked more genuine and watched him leave.

"I think I'm going to head to the library and get some work done," Elizabeth said once she and John were alone. She moved to stand but John put a hand on her arm to hold her in place.

"Just wait," he said and she looked at him warily, she'd known she couldn't get away with it forever but she'd hoped that she could avoid this until she knew what she was going to do.

"I've got a lot of work to do," she tried to excuse herself but he just gave her a disbelieving, annoyed look and she sighed. "Can we do this later?"

"No," he replied, "I've been letting it slide for days, what's going on?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"You've been acting... distant and... standoff-ish for days," he continued more annoyed now. "You've clearly been avoiding me when we're not in class and refused to be alone with me so that we couldn't have a private conversation. What's wrong?"

"John, I..." she had no idea what to say.

"Is this because of the other day, because we..." he trailed off and it only took a couple of seconds for her mind to pick up on his train of thought.

"No, oh God no," she was quick to reassure him, realising he thought the way she'd been acting had something to do with them sleeping together. "It's not that, it's got nothing to do with that, that was... that was great, it's... it's not that."

She was sure her face was a little red, she hadn't even considered that he would think that. It was understandable, now that she thought about it, she'd started acting distant with him just a couple of days after they'd slept together and with no other explanation, of course his mind would link the two.

John nodded. "Then what's wrong?"

"It's just..." she began but still had no excuse lined up. "It's family stuff."

"Something to do with Carlie?" he questioned and she opened and closed her mouth. He deserved an explanation, he deserved the truth but how could she tell him, how could she explain the letter her father had sent. He knew a little about her family, he'd met her father and Carlie but none of her friends knew the whole truth. They didn't know the extent of the mess the relationship between her and her father was in. She'd hoped it would remain that way, if she told John the truth now then a large part of that would be revealed.

"It's..." she took a deep breath, sighed, looked around the cafeteria and knew this wasn't a conversation to have here. "Come on."

He narrowed his eyes, probably trying to judge if this was some kind of diversion but he stood and they walked silently to his room. The tension grew between them, she was nervous about telling him and she could only imagine what kinds of thoughts might have been running through his head as he tried to figure out what was going on.

She waited until he'd closed the door behind them before she spoke. "Carlie knows I'm seeing you, she told our father and I got a letter from him a few days ago."

"Well, I'm guessing this isn't going to be good," John replied as he stood in front of her and waited for her to continue.

"He told me that our family and yours don't get along and it's disrespectful of me to be seeing you when I know he wouldn't approve," she began. "He told me I have to break it off with you."

John's eyebrows lifted in disbelief, she watched as he absorbed her words. "And is that what you want?" he asked her.

"Of course it's not," she told him, a little annoyed by the question.

"Then he can forget it," John said angrily.

"It's not that simple," she said with a deep breath. "He thinks I'm... I don't know but he found out about the whole Allinyas thing and the rumours that I took it willingly and accused Cal to cover my tracks. He says I'm damaging our family's reputation; I had an argument with Carlie which she obviously told him about and probably exaggerated. I refused to listen to him when he told me that I had made poor choices in my friends. He thinks I'm getting out of his control and if I don't start behaving in an appropriate manner then he's going to pull me out of the school and make me return home where he can keep me under control."

She'd never seen John look so angry before and he cursed as he turned away from her and walked over to the window. He leaned on the window ledge, his muscles tight and his back still to her. She gave him a few moments to take in what she'd said, to process it and to calm down. He finally let out a deep breath and then turned around to face her again.

There was still anger in his eyes, but behind that there was something that looked a lot like desperation. "So basically, you either break up with me or you get pulled from the school."

She nodded, "And then I don't get to see you or any of the others again and I can say goodbye to any chance of making it onto the Alteran council, as a governor or otherwise."

John cursed again under his breath. "I don't know what to say to that."

They stood there in silence for a while, neither of them knowing where to go from there. John finally looked her in the eye.

"You've got plans for your life Elizabeth, big plans and as much as it kills me, I can't, I won't be the reason that you don't get to be and do all the things you want. I won't be the reason you lose everything that you've gained here either," he told her and she looked at him, just stared at him, unable to speak for a moment.

She could hear in his voice how much saying that had cost him, could tell that he meant every word. No matter how much it would hurt him to do it, he'd let her go because he thought that was what she needed, because what she wanted was more important to him that what he wanted. She could honestly say that her father had never done, and probably never would do, the same thing for her. In fact she didn't think anyone had put what she wanted and needed ahead of themselves since her mother had died.

"No," she said and he looked at her confused for a moment. She shook her head, could feel herself fill with resolve. "He's not taking this from me. We'll just... we'll be less open about being together. If Carlie thinks we're just back to being friends then that's what she'll tell our father. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Elizabeth, you'd be taking a big chance, think of everything you'd be risking," John said as he stepped towards her.

"I have, I am," she replied. "Unless it's not what you want."

"I want to be with you, if that means keeping it quiet then that's fine with me but it's not me that's risking my future to do it," he told her and she nodded her head.

"No, it's me, which make it's my choice, my decision," she told him. "And I've made it."

"Are you sure?" he questioned, hopeful. She smiled and nodded, leaning up she kissed him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight, she wasn't losing him, her father wasn't taking him from her.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

**Authors Note: Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter, enjoy!**

Chapter 14

It had been a tough week but the worst of it was hopefully over now. John and Elizabeth had faked a break up, nothing over dramatic or even public, they'd just told people they'd mutually decided they were better off as friends. The only people they'd told the truth to were Jack and Teyla, mostly because it was hard to keep a secret like that from your room mate or your best friend who seemed to have developed a knack for knowing when you were lying. They'd given both permission to tell their significant others because they didn't want to be the reason that Jack and Teyla had to lie to the person they were seeing, they were confident it wouldn't go any further than that.

Everyone else had been determined to do something about it. They'd been ambushed and talked to about it repeatedly, apparently they were good together and no one wanted to see them split up. It had been hard to sit there and lie to their friends but it was their only choice. Neither of them wanted to end the relationship, so pretending they had was the only other course available to them.

John arrived in the cafeteria and instead of taking his usual seat next to Elizabeth, something he'd done since before they'd been dating, he sat next to Cameron. They wanted the break up to look legitimate so they had decided that things needed to look a little bit awkward between them, at least for a little while.

"Did you guys hear anything about that girl from the library?" Laura asked.

Jack shook his head, "No, they spoke to us about it the next day but they didn't tell us what happened to her."

"That's because they don't know," Marcus replied, all eyes turning to him. "I was in the infirmary after I got injured during guild football training yesterday."

"Yeah, that was a nasty tackle," John grimaced.

"No kidding," Marcus replied and then shook himself. "Anyway, the girl you saw, she's still there. I overheard, or may have purposely listened to, the healers talking. They said they're not sure what caused her hallucinations but she's been pretty traumatised over it."

"Marcus, you can't just listen in to people's private medical conversations," Janet chastised and Marcus shrugged.

"I was bored."

"Hey, you know when I was in there with my injured leg," Rodney said, rubbing his leg as though it was hurting him again. "There was a girl, a red head, she was in there for hallucinations to."

"Does no one respect medical privacy?" Janet questioned.

"Well, if they're just going to talk about it all in the open like that then they should expect that people are going to hear private information," Jack pointed out. He strained his neck to look over the sea of heads between themselves and where the food was being served. "The queue is smaller, I'm gonna go and get something to eat before it's all gone."

"You know they make more than enough for everyone right?" John asked following after him. He glanced back at the table, Elizabeth was having a separate conversation with Teyla and Carson.

"You guys doing alright?" Jack questioned when they reached the back of the queue.

"It's only been a week," John said. "It's weird though, I have to think about what I'm doing, like not sitting next to her, not touching her, not being caught looking at her, which apparently I fail at."

"I think anyone else would just figure you were uneasy about breaking up, not that you were secretly still together but had to pretend otherwise so Elizabeth's evil father doesn't yank her out of the school and crush her spirit," Jack summed up and John raised an eyebrow at him. "Sounds pretty crazy when you put it all together like that doesn't it?"

"Of course it does when you exaggerate everything," John replied and then thought about it for a moment. "Though not by much."

"You'll figure it out," Jack said with a nod. "I'm not sure how, but you'll figure it out."

* * *

><p>Carly sat at the desk in her room to begin writing a letter to her father. She updated him on how her classes were going, he liked to know that kind of stuff even though it didn't really interest her. Then she told him about the stuff that did interest her, her social life, though she left out any parts he might have frowned upon. Next came the update on Elizabeth.<p>

She seemed to have done the right thing and broken up with John, she was still hanging out with him which was unfortunate but they were no longer dating. She had no doubt that Elizabeth was mad about it but it was for her own good, sometimes her sister just didn't know what was best for herself. Elizabeth was stubborn, outspoken and contrary and it had always gotten her in trouble, she just didn't do as she was told.

These so called 'friends' of hers were a perfect example. Elizabeth didn't have friends, she never really had, people just didn't like her that much thanks to her stubborn, outspoken, contrary personality. Whatever these people wanted from her, it wasn't friendship, there were benefits to befriending the daughter of a governor, especially when it was the governor of a place like Tralos, one of the more powerful counties. Elizabeth just couldn't see it so it fell to Carly to ensure that her sister's behaviour didn't adversely affect their family.

It was a duty she took seriously and one she knew, if Elizabeth didn't mend her ways, was going to be harder later in life. If Elizabeth became governess, as was expected, then she was going to have to seriously rethink the choices that she made. What Elizabeth didn't know, what no one had mentioned but Carly could clearly see, was that their father was considering naming Carly the next governess and bypassing Elizabeth.

Carly was the daughter he could trust, she did as she was told, behaved appropriately, most of the time and never got caught when she didn't. She knew how to make the right kinds of friends, how to manipulate people when needed. She knew how to play the game, something Elizabeth didn't or wouldn't do.

This school seemed to have changed Elizabeth, it was noticeable last year when she accompanied their father for the parents week. She had gained new confidence but not in a good way, it was making her rebel, making her think she knew best when she clearly didn't. They'd both be going home for Christmas in a few weeks, that was going to be interesting.

There was a knock on her door, she recognised the knock and called for the person to come in. Sasha opened the door, walking into the room in the new dress she'd bought in town the other day. They'd both complained that the stores in town just didn't measure up to those in Alteran city or the custom made dresses that Carly got back home. They had to make do though and so they'd searched out the best, most expensive clothes they could find.

"I saw your sister in the cafeteria, still with those people," Sasha told them. There was nothing Sasha loved more than a good gossip and she seemed to think Elizabeth was a good topic for it. Carly wasn't about to gossip about her sister though, not when it could hurt her family name.

"Yes well, she'll learn eventually," Carly waved the conversation off. "You look fabulous in that dress, I told you that you would."

Sasha gave a twirl and posed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "I know, you were so right, you usually are."

Carly sealed her letter into an envelope and wrote her home address on it. "Of course, come on, I have to send this letter."

* * *

><p>Doing nothing wasn't something Sam had ever been very good at. She was always thinking, always doing something even if it was just reading a book. Jack on the other hand liked doing nothing sometimes and so, being the good girlfriend that she was, Sam occasionally agreed to do absolutely nothing. She was lying next to Jack on her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to keep her mind from going into overdrive.<p>

"You're thinking again," Jack said and she turned to look at him. His eyes were closed and he looked entirely too comfortable.

"How am I supposed to not think?" Sam questioned and Jack smiled slightly.

"Like this." If it was possible his body seemed to relax even further. After a moment Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

"Are you seriously telling me there are no thoughts running through your mind right now?"

"Just the occasional one, I chased them off," he told her and she shook her head and looked back at the ceiling again. She closed her eyes, cleared her mind, tried to relax but within seconds she was thinking again. She tried to visualise an empty space, absolutely nothing it and focus on that but her mind wondered again.

"I can't do it," Sam said with a frustrated sigh.

"You just need more practice," Jack told her, his voice completely relaxed.

Sam turned onto her side, rested her head on her hand and stared at him until he opened one eye to look at her. She raised an eyebrow at him again and he chuckled as he turned on his side to face her.

"You really are bad at this," he said and leaned over to kiss her. "Don't worry, I'll teach you."

"I would clearly be learning from a master," she replied. "Are you looking forward to Christmas?"

Jack sighed. "Not really, Alex was the one who made Christmas something worth going home for. It was him and me you know, whenever there was a family thing, family dinner, Christmas, governors events. We stuck together, got each other through, I hate the thought of Christmas without him."

Sam could hear the pain in his voice, he still struggled over his brother's death and rarely talked about it. "I'm sorry," she said, she hadn't meant to bring his brother up. "From what you've told me about him, he'd want you to enjoy the holidays, make the most of it."

"He would," Jack nodded.

"And your parents can't be all bad, they're still your parents, you must at least be looking forward to seeing them a little," Sam continued.

"Tell that to Elizabeth, poor girl must be dreading the holidays," Jack replied but then shrugged. "I guess when I think about it they're not so bad, and I do miss them when I'm away this long."

"There you go then," Sam said with a smile. "And don't forget... presents."

Jack laughed. "There is that."

"I've already got yours," Sam told him and watched his eyes light up. "It's hidden, somewhere in this room." His eyes darted about, trying to figure out where it might be and she could tell he was about to get up and start looking for it. "You won't find it, and if you do, you're not having it."

He actually pouted at that, "No fair."

She laughed and kissed him, "I guess I'll just have to keep you distracted."

Jack grinned against her lips, "What did you have in mind?"

She kissed him again, slow and deep, running a hand through his hair and feeling his hand move over her waist, pulling her against him.

* * *

><p>Missy was running late, she was always running late, born that way, or so her mother had told her. She was supposed to meet up with her friends so they could go for a night on the town, they tried to go out every weekend, whether they hit the clubs, went for a nice dinner or shopping, they tried to make the most of their weekends. It was their final year and they only had so many of them left now.<p>

She pulled on her coat, the weather had turned cold over the last few weeks, it wouldn't be long before the snow started. She loved the snow, she and her two brothers spent every Christmas playing in it until they started turning blue and their parents had to force them inside. They'd get hot baths and then sit together by the fire with a hot drink. Even now that she was older she still enjoyed going outside with her brothers and trying to build a bigger, better snowman than they ever had before.

She took one last look in the mirror, fixed her hair and headed for the door. She stopped when she saw the wolf standing in front of it. It stood there staring at her with cold, watchful eyes. She wanted to scream, but the sound died in her throat. She took a slow step backwards and the wolf followed her. How did it even get in here, how had she not seen it before? It was huge, bigger than any she'd ever seen, not that she'd seen many, just the one, when she was younger, the one that had given her the faint scar on her arm.

There was no way out, her room was on the fourth floor so the window was out of the question and the wolf was blocking the door. She couldn't get out, couldn't get away, her roommate had already gone to meet their friends, no one was coming.

Why couldn't she just have been ready on time?

She took another step backwards and another but the wolf followed her every move. She could feel her whole body shaking, her breathing coming fast and short. Her legs wanted to turn to jelly and tears were running down her cheeks.

She needed to think, but she was too scared to form coherent thoughts,

Her back finally hit the wall and the wolf was close now. It had moved away from the door to follow her but she knew if she tried to run for it the wolf would be on her in seconds. It didn't matter she had to try, it was her only chance. She pushed herself off the wall and ran to the door, for a second she thought she might make it but two paws hit her back and she fell to the floor.

TBC


End file.
